Mommom & Poppop arrived early Friday afternoon. Bean was asleep when they got here and I was watching James for the day. We got to visit a little bit before Steve got home (he got off work a little early after his last meeting) and Bean woke up. We had just a couple hours of mayhem left (James & Bean combined always result in mayhem of some sort!). James was picked up at 5; so Steve and I got ready for our dinner reservations at 5:45!
We went to a "new" restaurant in town - Old City Prime. Okay, so really it's probably been around a year+, but we've had intentions of going since day 1; it just never worked out. It's probably the "fanciest" restaurant Lima has to offer. Now if you know Steve and I, you know we are pretty simplistic and tend to be cheap when we spend money. We checked out the menu and went in with a game plan. I'd get a "cheaper meal" (burger) and Steve was going to get a steak and then we'd split the meals. When we got to the table, we discovered that they'd revamped the menu for Valentine's day (even though it was the day before)! Our plan wouldn't work (they axed all the "cheaper" meals, even the steak Steve was going to get! So we initiated "plan b". Haha. We ended up splitting a meal (Pork Shank) and then I got a bonus dessert (donuts & chocolate fondue!) in the deal, haha. The food was very delicious and we had a nice time being able to just chat and not worry about Bean! Thanks Mommom & Poppop!
When we got back home, Ashley had just arrived from Cincy. She came up to spend the night with us and hang out a little on Saturday. We decided we were going to go to Dayton on Saturday for lunch and then check out the aviation museum. It snowed over night and was still snowing off and on when we got up. We still decided to head to Dayton, but first on the docket was an art session with Mommom and Bean. I have attempted small scale art sessions with Bean and they always end up in a mess. I wasn't sure how this session would go, but Bean loved it! I guess Mommom just has more experience in the art department.
(Bean had so much fun painting with Mommom! Her favorite part was dipping her brush in the water cup!)
After we all got ready, we loaded up in the cars to head to Dayton. Trisha headed with Ashley in her car while Doug, Steve, Bean and I were in our car. We had to get gas so Trisha & Ashley went on ahead. The weather was fine when we headed to the gas station, but completely changed when we were driving back past our neighborhood to go through town to get on 75. The weather quickly turned to complete white out conditions and slippery! Steve had an instance where he couldn't get the car to stop and Doug & I were for sure prepared to hit the car in front of us. However, Steve quickly decided to use the "E-brake" and got the car stopped with a few inches to spare. Sheeesh!
I wanted to call it quits (after all, we were just a few minutes still from our house!), but Doug called Trisha and she said there weather was fine and didn't know what we were talking about. We continued on our way very slowly. The visibility was so poor that I had to stick my head out of the back window to help Steve merge onto a big highway. Lots of cars on the highway had their flashers on and were going so slow. Wherever there was an open filed, you couldn't see anything (which on Highway 75, it's like all open fields). We only made it about a mile when we decided to bail and go back home. Ashley and Trisha finally started to hit the bad weather and agreed they should turn back, only they were much further ahead. Once we got off the highway and driving back up through time, the wind had died down and the visibility was back. We still decided it wasn't worth all the open fields and bad weather (it was supposed to be bad for a few more hours). So instead, we rendevouzed at Chipotle for lunch, hit up Meijer for bonus items, and then headed back home. Bean's naps got screwed up because she had fallen asleep in the car, but she still ended up taking a second nap (just later than normal). That girl is seriously a trooper!
Ashley hung out with us for a little bit longer before she had to head back down to Cincy. The weather had died down enough that she said the drive wasn't too bad. Trisha made a delicious meat loaf dinner and we watched an episode of Sherlock together.
On Sunday morning, Doug & Trisha packed up all their stuff and then we loaded up the cars (them in their rental, us in our car). We headed down to Cincy to meet up with Scott & Ashley for lunch and discuss afternoon plans. It's amazing the difference in weather a day makes! We had no problems on our drive down. We met up at our favorite pizza place - Dewey's! Which if you did the math on our Zoo trip, we had Dewey's 2 times in a week's time! This Dewey's was located right next some stores, so we ended up going over to a book store for a few minutes. While we were in the book store, Steve and I rode the escalator with Bean a couple times. She LOVED it!
(Going Down!)
(She signed "again" as she ran towards the escalator. She seriously loved this a little too much.)
We got back in our cars with a plan of meeting up at Scott/Ashley's house to condense cars and possibly go to an art museum (with a kids section) for the afternoon. Bean fell asleep in the car by the time we got to Ash/Scott's house. I stayed in the car with Bean while Steve figured out the plan with his family. They had decided to just stay at the house and not go back out anywhere. I wanted Bean to at least get a 45 min nap, so I sat in the car with her for another 30 min while everyone else hung out inside. Bean naturally woke up around the 45 min mark. I got her and her various items out of the car and we headed into the house. Bean loved hassling Tyson (their dog) and running around the house. We tried to keep her contained in the living room, but the child wouldn't stay. Luckily, there was enough people scattered around that she was kept entertained.
(I am not sure where she got all her props, but at one point, Bean entered the living room at Scott and Ashley's with Scott's "Tough Mudder" headband on, and carrying around some wand that I think was a magnet to pick stuff up.)
(Don't mess with this girl!)
(Aunt Ashley playing with Bean and her crazy toys).
Trisha (with Ashley's help) made chicken parmesan for dinner. Ashley had also picked up a DQ ice cream cake and we had a special little dinner celebration for Steve's birthday. We even got a bonus travelogue of Scott/Ash's recent trip to Costa Rica. We didn't make it through the whole picture show, since we needed to pack up and head back up to Lima. Cincy was supposed to get another snow storm the following day. We look forward to the next visit with Mommom & Poppop!
Haha love that the escalator and sweat band get-up made the highlights! Oh the excitement of Cincinnati!
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