Keeping up with...Family (Weekly Wrap 7/28 - 8/3 - Part 2)

Monday (7/31) After a great night of sleep for most of us (Adrian still struggled) we had a lazy start to our day by enjoying coffee and donuts together.  Then we had an early lunch and got ready to head downtown to COSI.  We wanted to do the traveling exhibit, Become an Astronaut and go to a planetarium show.  The boys loved the Astronaut exhibit!  You could do all different simulations of going to the moon, Mars & Jupiter.  We spent almost all of our time there, except for the 30 minutes we were at the planetarium for a space treasure hunt.  It was a fun afternoon at COSI and AJ wants to go back before the exhibit closes because he only did everything on the moon & Mars, not Jupiter.

 

 

After we finished up at COSI we headed home for some down time of board games and video games while we waited for my mom's plane to land.  She is coming to OH for the next two weeks and will be spending her time with both us and my brother's family.  We're excited she will be joining us for our staycation activities this week.  She landed right around 6pm so Zak and I went to pick her up.  We got home, had a quick dinner of pasta alfredo and then all three boys pounced on Nana to play with them.  We took turns so they could all have some time with her.  They are so excited to have her here to play with them!

Tuesday (8/1)  Our staycation continued today, but it wasn't the day we had planned.  We were going to go to the Olentangy Caverens, but since the rest of the week has rain in the forecast, we decided to go pick some fruit today.  We started at Blue Frog Farms and picked 4 quarts of blackberries.  They are delicious!  Then we headed to Legend Hills Orchard and Farm Market and picked 2 pecks of peaches and 2 bags of apples.  It was hot in the fields, but we survived.  

 

We finished up heading over to the Ole Mill Inn, home of Velvet ice cream, for a picnic lunch, some play ground time and of course ice cream!  They make AJ's favorite ice cream there, Buckeye Classic, and he was very excited to get it in a waffle cone.  We also decided to do a tour of the factory while we were there.  It was interesting to hear some of the history of the ice cream and how they make it.  The boys got a little antsy, but they really just wanted their ice cream.  After all of that, we were wiped out and decided to head home for a relaxing afternoon.

We got home and reorganized the fridges so we could fit all of our fruit in them.  Then it was AJ's turn to play with Nana, so he taught her how to play the Pokemon Trainer board game while Adrian and I got dinner together.  We grilled chicken and it was a gorgeous night so we decided to eat outside.  But of course as soon as we got our food, it started to rain on us so we headed inside.  After dinner, Daniel played Flick 'em Up with Nana, Adrian and Zak played Splendor and AJ and I play Valeria.  It was a fun night of board games!  We all headed to bed early to get an early start tomorrow for the fair!

Wednesday (8/2) Today was state fair day!!  We had SO much fun at the fair together.  We were there for about 5 hours and we rode rides, ate food, rode more rides and ate more food.  We got there and the boys wanted to head straight to the rides.  Zak wanted to ride everything in Kiddieland, which we pretty much did.  After a few hours of rides, we were all hungry so we stopped by Schmidt's for lunch - fried bologna, Bahama Mamas & hot dogs.  It was delicious!  We also got some fries to munch on while we were walking around.

 

 

After lunch, we ran into one of AJ's friends from school so they rode a few rides together and then we headed to the midway for the bigger rides.  We did just about every ride we could do over there as well.  Zak and Daniel loved "Crazy Mouse" and they rode it about 10 times.  AJ loved "Pharoah's Revenge" and he kept dragging us adults on with him.  He thankfully met another boy who was riding by himself so he rode a few times with him.  We also did the tilt a whirl, scrambler, a bunch of fun houses and my favorite, the "Rock N Roll Express."  After a few hours over here, we needed a break again, so we went to find some shade, some fried buckeyes, fried oreos and funnel cake and rested for a while.

This is AJ & his buddy in the back row 40 feet up in the air

After we filled up and rehydrated, we asked the boys what they wanted to do.  They only wanted to ride the giant slide a few more times and then they were ready to go home.  We headed to the slide, where they rode 5 or 6 times each.  Then we let them each pick one souvenir to take home, got one more order of fried buckeyes and headed for the exit to beat the rain storm that looked like it was approaching.  On the way out, I finally found the fried cookie dough so of course I had to get some of that too!  We finally made it to the car and headed home.  We were all exhausted so we just relaxed for a bit and all headed to bed early.  Super fun day!!

 

 

Thursday (8/3) I thought everyone would sleep in after the busy day yesterday but no such luck.  We again were up against some possible bad weather so we decided to get moving and head up to the Olentangy Indian Caverns as soon as we could.  We got there, signed up for a tour and started playing a round of mini golf.  After the first 9 holes, it was time for our tour of the caverns.  It was a little steep going down the first two sets of stairs, but after that, I really enjoyed the tour.  We went thru some narrow passages and learned some cool things about the caves and the Indians who lived there.  Daniel was really interested in the whole experience.  AJ was a little freaked out by the close spaces but otherwise enjoyed it.  Zak got bored at points, but was happy splashing in all of the mud puddles down there.  At the deepest, we were 150 feet below ground - pretty cool experience!

 

 

After our tour and a quick trip thru the museum, we went back to the golf course to finish our other 9 holes.  The course was cute, all Indian themed with a bunch of easy holes and a few more challenging ones.  When we finished up, the boys played on the small play ground for a little bit before we headed home to beat rush hour traffic.  When we got home, the boys played with Nana with Adrian and I got a few things done then got ready to head out for a date night.  We went to Cooper's Hawk to use our member appreciation credit, plus pick up some of our bottles of wine.  Since we upgraded our membership, we now can go for monthly wine tastings, so we did that as well.  It was a fun night out and we were thankful to sneak away for a few hours.