All right, there is one gigantic photo album attached to this one blog entry for our entire trip! Good luck.
First up we have our day of boating on Indian Lake with Mom & Dad B, Emily, Bill, Jenny, Ethan and Adam! It was a gorgeous day and the kids spent 6+ hours on the pontoon boat Chris's parents rented for us all! We drove around the lake, pulled into a lakeside restaurant for lunch, and stopped to play and swim at a beach on the lake. There are also some pictures and a video of all the cousins playing in gma and papa's backyard. There are no pictures, but we took a couple of pleasant walks from their house down to the lake shore where the kids had fun throwing rocks, bark, etc. into the water. On Saturday, Chris took his dad to see Star Trek as a belated Father's Day event.
After Indian Lake, Chris caught his plane for Rhode Island where he attended a Gordon conference all week. There will be a separate post of his pictures from the conference and a description of his cliff diving adventure!
The kids and I headed down to NKy where we had a quick bridesmaid dress shopping session with Em and Erin after Mass and breakfast. Then it was off to a picnic supper at the park with Heidi and another old friend from grade school and high school.
On Monday, we joined Jenny, Emily, Bill, Adam and Ethan for a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo. I personally enjoyed seeing the elephants get a bath and watching a peahen and her chick walk around under the table where we were eating lunch! The kids loved the kid-size cave near the polar bears and I think we all enjoyed two train rides around the zoo.
The next several days were spent visiting with Sarah who was kind enough to drive up from Lexington, taking my dad to see Star Trek for Father's Day, getting groceries for the wedding shower my sisters were giving Erin and making Erin's Mickey Mouse shower cake. We got to spend some nice time with "she" and "the papa who lives here" (i.e. Ellen and my dad) and got to meet my mom and all my sisters at St. E's hospital for lunch. You'll see some pictures of our portrait-taking session with Grandma Otte and all her great-grandchildren: Virginia, John, Ian, Lorelai and the newest baby, Aurora.
Chris returned that Friday, beaten up from his conference, but having had a good trip. The 4th of July was a wet day but we still made it to the Ft. Mitchell parade where we saw lots of fire trucks and the kids got tons of candy. In the afternoon, there was Erin's bridal shower, which Virginia and I attended while Chris and John got to hang out with Papa, Aunt Jenny and Ethan! The shower went very well and then all the boys came back for a 4th of July family party. Em had bought sparklers and we managed to light them by keeping out of the rain on the front porch! We rounded out the holiday with a trip to emergency room for Chris's nose, broken by John.
The next day we headed down to Lexington to visit Ben and Erin Gold and their twins, whom we hadn't seen since the day they found out they were pregnant with two instead of one. :) Then back up to Cincinnati to hang out at Rob and Julie's house. Uncle Rob and Aunt Julie very thoughtfully bought water guns for everyone to play with and there is a great video of J and Chris shooting each other in the face. :)
That next Monday was Erin's 21st birthday and we all celebrated by going to Miyako, a japanese restaurant that took over an old Bob Evans. It is decidedly weird to eat sushi in an old Bob Evans. We then had strawberry short-birthday-cake and Em, Ellen, Rick, Erin and Tyler and I go to go to a movie.
On our final day in town, we went to visit Aunt Mary and take her out for some Skyline. Then it was packing, a quick dinner at Frisch's and off to the airport.
Sorry if I forgot anything! It was a lovely long visit. Thank you all.
PICTURES 7/7/09
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