Our Vacation to Ohio!

 

For weeks I have been counting down the days until our trip to Ohio and it's finally come and gone. The first week of Ohio we visited Mr. 246's family and celebrated Luna's second birthday. (Can you believe it?!) I won't bother you with the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that were taken but I will share some!

We actually left the night of June 30 to take an overnight. I was weary about how taking a almost two-year-old on an overnight would be but it turned out okay. She only slept a little over two hours but was such a little trooper and very much well behaved. She was just excited about all of it. The pictures above are from the drive to SFO and the really neat hands on science playgroup thing that was right near our gate at SFO. (A genius came up with putting playgrounds in the airport!)

Hours and hours, and one layover later we landed in what we determined was the world's friendliest airport - Dayton, OH. A McDonald's breakfast and a quick drive lead us to Mr. 246's hometown and childhood home where this was waiting for Luna:

LUNALAND! My mother-in-law is the queen of details and niceties. They had so much stuff set up for Luna! And enough birthday presents for five children. Not pictured: the full size Christmas tree covered in pictures of Luna and origami ornaments made out of dollar bills (for Luna of course!).

Luna could barely walk right when we got there since she was so sleep deprived. (On her birthday no less!) We laid her down for a nap pronto because had to get rested up - it was the beginning of her unofficial birthday week! Presents were opened wherever she went and there were so many that she ended up opening presents on a daily basis. I joked that she probably thought that's just what strangers did now - meet a "stranger" and they give you a high five and a present to open.

The first night we went to Mr. 246's paternal grandparents. (Luna's GREAT grandparents! I wasn't around my grandparents growing up and I don't recall any great grandparents but now Luna has two sets of grandparents and two sets of great grandparents to spoil her. Hehe. How awesome is it to have that much family?)

An amazing dinner was made with no less than four casseroles....I was in midwest cooking heaven. I had seconds, then I had thirds. (I may or may not have gained five pounds in one week while I was there...)

We had a nice evening walk after dinner. Luna fell in love with this little car my MIL borrowed for her. Check that birthday girl out! Well, maybe not the second picture...

Then there was the house in the country:

Another afternoon we visited Mr. 246's maternal grandparents. Delicious cooking again but my favorite part was the perfect weather in the country and a HUGE yard for Luna to run in.

She loved every second of it and my heart tugged a bit and began yearning for a house of my own instead of the apartment life. All she wanted to do was play with stone birds, collect rocks, run in the grass and frolic about.

The next day, for a change of scenery, we went to Columbus area. We ate at one of our favorite restaurants, The Claddagh, which isn't on the west coast. It was just as delicious as I remembered it. Then, thanks to my almost brother-in-law, we were able to have prime rooftop seats to watch the fireworks over Columbus for the 4th of July. Totally felt VIP to me to be able to go up on the roof of one of the big buildings. It was one of those perfect nights where everything fell in to place. We couldn't have planned a better night.

We stayed at my sister-in-law's apartment, stayed up late, played board games, enjoyed each other's company. So much fun. Then the next day was the best part....the zoo!

The weather was perfect for the zoo and Luna had a blast! She quickly became obsessed with the kangaroos and we got the VIP treatment again from an old high school friend of Mr. 246 and his sister. She works at the zoo and got us into a special area to see the giraffes and African savannah area.

Another awesome night of hanging out together at my sister-in-law's apartment and sadly we were onto our last full day. We ordered some pizza and had some campfires and it was the perfect ending to our trip.

Conclusion: This post is greatly lacking in detail and emotions....if I were to include and describe the awesomeness of our trip and my in-laws it would be about five pages long. They are all such wonderful people and I am so blessed to have married into such a loving, fun, and supportive family. I don't know how I got so lucky. So, speaking of which...

Here's my somewhat big (not-so-new news): We're aiming to move back to Ohio toward the end of next year!

Mr. 246 will be finishing up with his masters and I'll have enough money saved up by then. Ever since I had Luna I knew I wanted to move back to the midwest. The west coast has a different vibe and somewhat different values. I want my child(ren) to have a somewhat similar environment to what I had growing up and you can't get that here in California. Plus we have a ton of family and lots of support in Ohio, it'll be fun for Luna to grow up around grandparents and cousins and friends. It's also cheaper to live there - maybe I'll be lucky and we'll be able to afford to homeschool. Hmmm...

Yes, anyway. So I'm super excited. And super motivated to save up my money. I even found my dream home already! Chances are it'll be gone by next year but I can dream. Haha. This seems a bit different then when we moved across country the first time. Anyone ever made a big move with children? How did that go?

Thanks for letting me share!

-Mrs. 246

The County Fair!

 

I had fun editing some pictures tonight if you couldn't tell. It's all part of my new crafting obsession. Need photos. Lots of photos. It's good because it's really motivating me to take more pictures. (I promise...I'll make a post real soon and share my new love.)

I love love love the last picture. Doesn't it look like she's looking at a fairy?

The cow and goat pictures were taken at the county fair. I wanted to go just to check out the quilts and crafts and photos and animals. (Not much, right? Hehe.) I love county fairs, except it was hot today. 100+ degrees. We were worn out when all was said and done just from the heat alone. Hopefully, when Luna's older and we're back in the midwest, I would like it if she would be interested in 4H. I think the whole concept and activities of 4H are so neat. I also wish we could have stayed longer until tonight because....Weird Al Yankovich was performing tonight! Haha. Does anybody remember him?

Moving on...like I say every year after I go to the fair: "I'm totally going to enter something next year!" I really want to. I think it's really neat to do. Maybe I'll enter an afghan, or a photo or two. Maybe I'm an asshole, but I like to look around at the entries and say to myself, "I could do better than that!"

Before I add "enter something into the county fair" to my mile long list of hopes and dreams, I've got to finish this wedding stuff. Goal for tomorrow: finish writing ceremony. Wish me luck.

Please feel free to leave any links to any of your recent pictures! I love looking at what everyone else is up to.

Goodnight!
-Ms. 246

San Diego Trip and a Quick Recap on Life

Okay, so I'm a little late on the update but it's been a crazy week. We got back late Sunday night. (Side note: It took five hours longer to get home because of traffic. And, just to brag -- I drove through LA traffic myself and we all survived!)

We had a great trip (we went to San Diego if you didn't see my last post). We went down for a family reunion. It was crazy to meet so many people you're related to but you don't really know any of them. Haha.

In order to save time, here's some lists!

Highlights of the Trip:

• Meeting so many welcoming family members
• Ryan took Luna to hang out near the pool so I could get all prettied up for something and he came back to the hotel room with Luna wearing his t-shirt as a diaper. Hahaha. I was cracking up. His response: "Yea...she really wanted to go swimming so then she needed a new diaper." I love it.
• Going to the San Diego Zoo! It was such a short trip we didn't have time for much but we succeeded in our one goal: making it to the zoo. You could easily spend two days just at the zoo. We walked around all day and we probably only saw a third. 
• Watching Luna enjoy herself at the zoo. She loved all the animals and liked to yell and wave at them (as well as yelling at other people). She got very upset once she realized we weren't going to watch flamingos all day. She really enjoyed watching them. I think her other favorite animals were the bear and the zebra.
• Taking Luna to walk in the ocean for the first time. (Well...kind of. It was a port/bay area...but it's ocean water, right? Maybe we ought to go the beach again sometime soon.)

Highlights of this Past Week:

• Monday we got settled back in from the trip. Ryan had to go back to work already though.
• Tuesday we got our marriage license!!! We dropped Luna off at daycare and went to the county courthouse and got us a license. Yippee!
• Wednesday I bought a wedding dress. Yes, you heard me right. My wedding is in two weeks and I just bought a dress. I ordered the dress of my dreams online from Etsy and it's not looking promising. They keep saying they're sending it (it's about a month late at this point) and it keeps not arriving at my doorstep. So yea...I bought a new dress. It fits well, just needs hemmed!
• Thursday I went to the town we're getting married in and got my hair trial done. That wasn't the best part...the best part was wandering about downtown by myself when I was done. I had lunch and went antiquing. I got some old books, a needlepoint to hang in our kitchen (just needs a new frame), and some really old copies of crafty/crochet magazines. 
• Today (Friday!) was a lovely day. I worked a ton on my latest crafting endeavor, Luna took some killer naps, and we wandered about Joann Fabrics and Costco, enjoying their air conditioning from the hot weather.

Whew! So there you have it. I've got so much going on lately, it's hard to keep up. I do, however, have two new crafting obsessions I will be making a post about soon. Squeee! I'm excited to share.
What's everyone else been crafting up lately?

Thanks for stopping by!
-Ms. 246