Z's Midwest Adventure

We spent the weekend in Ohio and had a blast, especially Z. We went to a local parade, saw farm animals, saw lots of family and friends, celebrated his birthday, had ice cream and about 12 other things in just one weekend!

Let me begin with the plane ride. Z has had a few rough nights lately for unknown reasons, and of course the timing was not the best, but he woke up on time on Friday and in a good mood, so we went with it. We made it to the airport checked our bag and basically walked straight on the plane. Because Z is not quite 2, he still qualified as "infant in arms" and got a free ride (in our lap). This was convenient for the money savings but less than convenient due to the fact he is at least 34 inches tall and a wiggle worm, I digress however. I had packed several reinforcements, including the beloved Winie the Pooh, a Winnie coloring book with crayons (a big hit I might add), my iPad with full length episodes of Blue's Clues and Dora loaded on it, cheerios, ni-ni, candy, and suckers. I have to say, he did awesome! He was so into the airplanes, at one point he even simultaneously signed and said "mo, mo, airplanes."

We had to connect flights, and he was not a fan of waiting in lines or being tied down in the airports. After all noone else had to hold hands or be held by someone else. Of course, in the Atlanta airport, you could probably take your eyes off your kids for all of 1.5 seconds and he would be gone, so we had to do what he had to do, meltdowns and all. Note: if I had one of those leash backpack thingys, I totally would have used it in the airport.  We were starving (at 10:30 in the morning), so we all ate Charley's, the philly cheesesteak place. Z ate chicken nugget fingers (that's what they looked like, long chicken nuggets, no telling what's in them!) and some fries and we were able to entertain him with all of the surrounding airplanes. He did pretty well on the longer flight from Atlanta to Dayton, so I rewarded at the end him with a sucker. We usually get suckers about once a week when we go to the bank together, but man does he love them, he usually holds it out several times and says, with a big smile, "suckaaaa!!"

So, that bought us a little more time when he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. We got in around 3:30 and put him down. He slept for 2 hours and was a new man when he awoke! So, we ate and let him play and stay up pretty late, and thankfully, he went  right to sleep and we didn't hear a peep until 8 in the morning! We got up quickly and headed to  Xenia for a parade. Every couple minutes someone would hand Z candy. I think he ate about 10 suckers that morning, but he loved it because he got to see all of his favorite automobiles live and in person, trucks, tractors, school buses, fire engines,  motorcycles, and the list goes on, all while eating a virtually endless amount of suckers! I think this was the point that he realized it was going to be a great weekend!

The rest of the day we celebrated his birthday and he ran around wild and free playing with everyone there, young and old. He especially had fun with Lola, his second cousin, who is 1 and 1/2 years old. That night we went a balloon glow, which is where they illuminate 3 very large hot air balloons. He was totally fascinated!

 Here he is with his great grandmother!

Thanks to Janet for these pictures!

The next day we went to Young's Dairy, where Z got to see all kinds of farm animals and play on a huge slide. The amount of firsts that occurred for him on this trip are nearly endless.