Ohio Trip

 Two weeks ago the boys and I loaded up the van with my mom and niece and took off for Ohio.  The boys had been counting down the days until we left....they were excited!  It was such a laid-back fun trip. 

Anthony couldn't wait to get into this red car. 

 He talked about it all the time.

 It was one of the first things he looked for when we arrived.

 He loved driving Autumn around in it.

The boys couldn't wait to get on the trampoline either.  I gave it a go myself and it brought back a lot of memories of jumping on our friends growing up.  

Our first night brought us to this great park.  We came to do paddle boats but they were closed for renovations.  It had this great park though which the kids enjoyed.

 

 

 

 Before Monique left with Corinne to girls camp, I had told her that every time I try to make her rolls they never come out so she decided we were gonna make some right then.  They were great and the boys loved them. The next day I tried to make them on my own and it worked.  The dough doubled in size...the only problem was that I forgot the salt!  But I got the dough to rise and I was happy.  They weren't too bad but salt is important!

  

One of the days we went to Kings Island.  We did not do our annual Kings Dominion trip knowing we would hopefully go when we came to Ohio.  It was a lot of fun with cousins.  For the first part of the day it was me with all the kids.  We headed to the water park first and did a few water rides there and then the kids wanted to go ride the rides.  The older group when off and rode the rides Jayden and Anthony weren't tall enough for.  I took those two to Snoopy Land and realized (again) that Anthony is not a roller coaster fan.  The look on his face was priceless when we went on the mini-roller coaster.  He was gripping the handle bar so hard and his eyes, they were big!

Because my brother lives so close, we came home for dinner and went back in the evening with my brother to ride the really good ones.  We left the smaller kids home with my mom.  It was great! Since my nephew goes there frequently he knows where all the cameras are on the coasters and it was fun to look at the pics afterwards to see his funny pose.  He can be pretty creative!

This roller coaster was the worst one ever!  Hated it!!!  They lay you on your back as you go up the hill and then flip you right before you go down the big hill.  The second picture shows you how you ride the ride the whole time.  You are suppose to feel like you are a hawk.  Horrible!!  Closed my eyes the whole time because when I peaked once it looked like you were plummeting to your death.  Hated it!! Can you believe that Diego was in the front car with my brother and his son?  Crazy!!!

A must on the list was to go to "Jungle Jim's".  This weird grocery store was an experience.  They have food from all over the world.  My brother said that the deal was you had to pick something from a different country that you had never had before.  The hunt was on...  

Diego and Christian ended up getting something from the bakery.  They also got these drinks that you had to open by pushing the marble down into the bottle.  Anthony ended up getting a Lunchable.  Not very exotic but he's never had one from Ohio.

So these are the bathrooms in the grocery store.  Very unique.  

 It took some convincing to get Autumn to sit on "the throne."

One night we made S'mores.  Always a party.

 

 There had been several attempts to make "glow bottles" earlier in the week which had failed.  Gave it one last shot and just decided it is basically a glow stick in a water bottle.  Made for good laughs though.

 

 One highlight was the playing of FIFA.  There was lots of yelling which brought back many memories of my brothers and dad getting excited over some sport they were watching on tv.  Here is Jared taking on Diego in a rematch.