ohio

This has been, and continues to be, the busiest I have ever been during the holiday season.

My brother finally was able to make a trip back to visit our family in Ohio, his first one back in 7 years, and since I'm "within driving distance" (pushing it-- it's 10+ hours) I decided to head up there as well and spend some time with him. He brought his daughter Abby too and the extended family all got to finally meet her. Since he was visiting the week before Thanksgiving, I decided to stay through Thanksgiving weekend and Jeff would fly up on Thanksgiving day and drive back with me on Sunday. I was in Ohio for a long time. It was great! But I was exhausted by the time it was over. Partially because I got the flu two days before Thanksgiving and I was still recovering from that. But more on that later.

The drive up was brutal. I had Chipper with me and he would not relax for some reason. He was restless and was whining for the first couple HOURS of the drive, and just when I was about to go insane from that sound, I decided to pull over and get him some Benedryl and hoped he would fall asleep. This didn't really work. Without going into a ton of detail that would probably bore everyone, I'll just say that I had to make A LOT of stops for Chipper and he turned a 10 hour drive into a 12 hour drive. He did take some little naps but nothing substantial that I really wanted. For the record, on the drive back home he was the perfect dog and that made that long drive stress free.

Anyway, John and I got to spend some time with both sides of the family early in the week. That was great. We saw some cousins we hadn't seen in a long time, aunts and uncles on both sides, and our grandma a couple times.

Family

Unfortunately we didn't get a picture with my mom's sister Mary and her husband Dale! I don't know how we missed that. We had lunch with them and spent the afternoon just catching up. It was great to see them after a few years apart. There's not much left to my mom's family and we cherish the time we do get with those who are still with us. We did a little shopping too of course. We hit the outlet mall and as we walked past the Disney outlet store Abby recognized Mickey and after that there was no way we were going to be able to walk past without going in.

Let me just say. This child knows all the classic Disney characters. I'm not even entirely sure I could have told you Daisy's name last month. I would have had to really think about it. She recognizes them from a distance and goes nuts for Mickey. Seeing her in the Disney store was hilarious and worth it. I couldn't believe some of the stuff she recognized and knew the names of. She's not quite 2 and yet she knows more about Disney than I do! They had a sale going on of some small stuffed animals so her daddy bought her two. How generous of him. :)

Kid in a candy store? More like kid in a Disney store.

Went to her great grandma's house and she gave her an ice cream bar. Reminded me a bit of when we used to go to Grandma's house and have milkshakes!

Doesn't get much cuter than that.

We did a little exploring of downtown Cincinnati and Newport, KY also. It was cold out so this was mostly just driving around but I still got some good pics of the Cincinnati skyline.

Cincinnati skyline with some riverboats

I started using my Olloclip on this trip. Yes, I bought a lens for my iPhone. I know, it's a little dorky. But it takes my iPhone pictures to the next level. Some of them turned out really great and I can already tell I'm going to love having this lens. Plus, you can get a used one for half price on Amazon or eBay and that really makes it affordable, or at least eligible for a Christmas wishlist.

Here's a couple pictures I took with the fisheye on the Olloclip:

This is actually the wide angle lens, but still the Olloclip. Had I just been using my phone and no lens, you would not be able to see the whole building. I could have just stood farther back, but then the building would look small in the photo.

I'm still practicing with it. I have next to zero photography expertise but this little lens is making my iPhone pictures so fun. I can't wait to play with it at Disney World next week!

Anyway, John and my dad did a lot of studying of the family tree that week and we went through some family heirlooms. We had a look at this huge Bible that came down through my mom's family. The thing was huge. I put my hand next to it for scale in a photo but that doesn't even really show how big it was in real life. Bigger than a phone book.

After John and Abby went back home things calmed down a bit. Then just two days before Thanksgiving I came down with the stomach flu. Luckily it was only a 24 hour bug but it was rough. I was especially worried I wouldn't be feeling well enough to eat dinner on Thursday! I did feel well by then, but I couldn't even finish my first plate of food. And I only managed to get one meal of leftovers the entire weekend. Not because there wasn't enough, but because we kept making other plans to meet up with people or other random reasons. So I'm already craving a nice Christmas dinner to make up for that. It was still delicious though. I only wish I'd been able to eat more of it!

The day after Jeff arrived he also came down with the flu. Then as we were packing up to leave on Sunday, we found out my stepmom had also gotten it. At this point I was really glad it was just a 24 hour thing. Even though they were a rough 24 hours, I almost prefer being sick for that amount of time instead of having a 2 week cold.

Like I said, the drive back was a cake walk for Chipper. He slept almost the whole way and required very few stops. He was like a completely different dog. I'm so grateful! It was a long drive but we made it back home safe and sound. This year, I'm thankful that I got to spend a lot of time with family and that we have the opportunity to do a lot this holiday season. We're taking a week at home to recharge, do some laundry, and repack the bags and then it's off to Disney World on Saturday! I can't wait to disappear from reality for a few days in the happiest place on Earth. Hopefully I will have lots of pictures to share in another week or so!