Cincinnati Visit

All last week, Steve had some more training in Cincinnati.  We spent the week staying at Steve's sister/brother-in-law's house.  We headed up a day early so that we could spend some time with Scott & Ashley since Ashley would be gone in Lima all week.  We packed a lot in while we were visiting and enjoyed all our favorite Cincinnati spots.

On Sunday, we headed to Findlay Market with Scott & Ashley.  The Market is a big building with lots of booths to buy all sorts of things from jewelry & candles to pigs feet.  There are other little shops and restaurants all around, too.  The area is a lot livelier in warmer weather.  But the day we went it was cold and even started snowing!  After a lunch at a sandwich shop, we headed across the river into Kentucky to do a driving tour of Covington.  The tour wasn't well organized and we found ourselves driving back and forth a lot.  Steve was driver, Ashley was navigator, I was the fact giver/reader, and Scott slept.  It just so happened to also be St. Patrick's day which led to a lot of pedestrians and tents around the area.  After an agonizing 1.5 hours of driving all over (agonizing because some turns came up quick, we went back and forth alot, and lots of information was lacking), we headed to the Newport Aquarium to finish up our outing.  The Aquarium was pretty neat and well laid out (although the big crocodile Mighty Mike wasn't there and Steve was bummed).  We enjoyed looking at all the sharks, eels, fish, otters, and penguins.  Afterwards, we headed back to their house for the rest of the evening.

(At the Aquarium in the Frog themed Kids Zone area.  Scott and Steve entertained themselves playing Frogger!  They both got pretty into it and did a pretty good job.  It was a nice break between all the fish -- haha!)

The rest of the week kind of blurs together.  I spent my days hanging out with their dog Tyson, watching enough television to rot my mind, and worked on crocheting a baby blanket.  Steve was home anywhere between 5:00-6:30.  One day, his training took him up to Lima for a tour of the plant. He got to be a student for some of his fellow coworkers - ha!  Scott was busy a lot in the evenings so we went out a lot in the evenings to hit all our favorite spots & try out some new ones.  While in Cincinnati, we visited Ikea (and ate our favorite$2.50 hot dog meal), Dewey's, and even went and visited my uncle one evening (my aunt was sick that night).  We tried out some new places -- an ice cream shop Aglamesis Brothers & a sandwich place -- Izzy's.  We'd recommend the ice cream shop, but the sandwich place was a little over our heads (it had been featured on Man v. Food).

We always enjoy our little jaunts down to Cincinnati to both see family and soak in all that Cincinnati has to offer.  Steve loves to remind me that some day we may call Cincinnati home and get to enjoy our favorite places on a regular basis.  I on the other hand recognize that'll take away the special-ness of those spots; plus, I really don't want to think about Cincinnati driving just yet!  I enjoy my boring old Lima :-).