Cincinnati!

We had an AWESOME visit to Cincinnati during July 4th week!  To set the stage...an awful storm had rolled through Virginia (and IL, OH, WV and all states in between) the night before we left.  On Saturday morning we awoke to no power and storm damage around our town.  As temperatures in the 100s loomed, we stewed about leaving for several hours before finally jumping in the car and hitting the road at 9am.  We learned that the drive from here to there takes us between 10 and 11 hours with oodles of stops.  We like to consider Alex and Abby as pretty flexible travelers, but holy cow!!  This was the first road trip where "Are we there yet??" kept coming up.  Reminding Alex that he used to travel between Houston and Cincinnati by car doesn't really help much...and truthfully, Abby struggled more than he did.

 Grandpa had one big tree down after that storm Friday night.  He and Brad tackled it with a chainsaw while we were there.

 A visit to the Aquarium in Newport, KY complete with Cincinnati skyline views!

Snowcone break in Newport, KY.  We had numerous snowcones during our visit to Cincinnati!

 Lot of swimming at the Erickson's on July 4th!

 Waiting for the "fireworks" with Aiden and Abby.

 Chillin' with Gigi!

 We stopped up in Hamilton, OH to visit Gigi.  The kids had fun on a scavenger hunt around the yard.

 This picture of Alex, Abby and Aiden followed their flag "parade" around the pool.

Alex and Grandma built this robot one afternoon after reading his robot book night after night at bedtime. He named it "X.T.L."

Abby and Aunt Nicci when we went out to lunch with her, Grandma Eileen, and Great-Grandma, post-Madagascar 3! 

There were numerous cookouts, swimming, movies, stops at the Aquarium and Fountain Square, more swimming, family meals and visits, some swimming, and a little handyman work along the way.  Alex and Abby are both little fish this summer and love to be in the water.  With temperatures hovering around 100 degrees all week, air conditioning and swimming were the best two activities for us! 

At both Grandma Kathy's and Grandpa's we celebrated Aunt Jackie's engagement to Scott over dinner, although they were in D.C. and we were in OH, but nevertheless, we were so excited for them! 

We had a super time and but felt like being gone 7 nights/8 days was probably a little long, despite having had a pet sitter.  It probably didn't help that our power here was out 48hrs and it was roasting in our house in VA.  We did a big fridge cleanout when we returned and have retrained the cats to be law-abiding house pets.