ohio vaca

I felt like this third trip to Ohio was a real vacation. It was longer than a long weekend and J came along (which was really nice for Aiden and for me - for more reasons than just being able to stretch out on the plane - Aiden gets a solid A on both trips. As we landed he didn't even wake up, and J's commentary is that this kid flies too much to not even flinch when the plane skids to a stop.) It was a nice time to get away after a really busy time at work. It's hard to give a rundown of all the "events" but my mom, dad, uncle, and aunt deserve a big thank you because nearly every meal was an event. My sister, her fiance, my grandfather, his girlfriend, and J, Aiden, and I made a big group of visitors on top of an already large coalition of ohio fan club members (13-17 more making over 24 people some of the time). Aiden got to meet his great grandfather and some more great, great uncles and aunts and second cousins. I feel lucky that we can all get together so frequently.

Aiden had his first dip in a little baby pool. We were going to go to the city pool but decided it would be too much trouble, so we bought a cute little froggie pool where the eyes and mouth shape make a shaded area. Aiden loved splishy splashing away with his whistling hippos floating all around them. The little hippos had rings that they floated with and he picked out the yellow one as his favorite and chased it around the little pool. It's amazing that he can concentrate on anything with so many people gooing and gawing at him from outside the pool. His clapping was in full effect, and it seemed that he would start clapping just to get a ooh-aah out of everyone and get us to start clapping. I think he has us well trained.

A highlight of the trip was getting a chance to visit the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. We were able to meet up with a friend from high school and her adorable little boy who was celebrating his 9 month birthday (about a month and a half older than Aiden). It was nice to meet up and meet her family and I hope we can meet up during other ohio trips. It turned out to be free day for Cuyahoga County residents, and it seemed that the entire county showed up, along with a bunch of summer day camps. I couldn't help but think how "the zoo was a zoo"... I even had to let that "joke" slip when we got wedged into the monkey house with too many squealing kids...couldn't help the bad joke. We saw just about every part of the zoo and the rainforest and spent nearly five hours cruising along. Aiden and Ben were in and out of napping and sometimes looking at us wondering what we were pointing at... The really excited reaction we got from Aiden was in the hippo house. I think he got excited because mom and Auntie Liz were so smiley.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some stories, but I'll post photos later... maybe even video sometime this weekend if Aiden's a good sleeper ;)