Oh my gosh, where do I start?
We arrived home Monday from our long weekend away at Grandma's house in Ohio. The purpose had been to attend a family wedding on my aunt and uncle's farm, but really it was a bigger adventure. The kids were still going strong and settled right back into home life...me, I needed about 12 hours of sleep and it's taken me a couple days to recover.
The kids did pretty well in the car. It's about 7 hours and Cole was the hardest since he just wants to get out and run around. It didn't help that we turned around and took a fairly long car ride to get where we wanted to visit Friday morning.
But Grandma had plenty of "new" toys (really just my old ones) to play with and the journeys out of the house always had something to discover. Friday we drove to eastern Ohio and ate lunch in a historic village before taking a horse-pulled canal boat ride at Roscoe Village. We never quite made to any of the shops or other history before the meltdowns started. Which was fine though. We had a pizza/cake party for Cole's birthday planned with some family friends coming over to meet the kids for the first time.
Saturday I woke up and did 16 miles on the new-since-I-lived-there multi-use trail. It actually ended up being 15 miles because the trail isn't well-marked yet and there are a few intersections that dead end either into weeds or suburban housing developments. It was a good run with negative splits coming home, however, which is a mini goal of mine for race day. Really, I'm aiming to just not go out too hard like I always do. Even splits would be nice. But slower first half and then finishing strong would be perfect.
It was hot still when we got to the farm Saturday afternoon, but we'd arrived early so Cole had some time alone with the cows and tractors. He had a particular favorite calf in the barn that he kept going back to visit multiple times. I've never seen him so excited. We made it through the meal, barely, before it was bedtime and we needed to start home though. My mom had the good idea of giving us a key to her place though so she could stay. At least the kids were good for the ceremony.
Sunday we had planned on a visit to the zoo with Grandpa's family, but it rained in the morning with a forecast for continuing to the afternoon. Naturally, the sun ended up coming out. We drove to Grandpa's house across town and spent some time in his backyard though. Cole got to pick fresh strawberries from the garden and meet my sister's hamster.
Cole's never said so much as he did over the weekend with all the new excitement.
We left very early Monday morning to arrive back to Chicago in time to pick up the 'hound from the kennel. The kids were actually perfect on the way home aside from an ill-advised stop for lunch. No tantrums. It was actually worse in some ways...Cole was just misbehaving. Though we've started to work in the new "no pacifier, no bottle" rules per doctor's orders and it maybe wasn't the best idea to start offering milk in a straw cup on the road trip. It just set up an "I don't even want french fries" attitude. Which you know is bad when a 2 year old refuses fries.
We arrived home Monday from our long weekend away at Grandma's house in Ohio. The purpose had been to attend a family wedding on my aunt and uncle's farm, but really it was a bigger adventure. The kids were still going strong and settled right back into home life...me, I needed about 12 hours of sleep and it's taken me a couple days to recover.
The kids did pretty well in the car. It's about 7 hours and Cole was the hardest since he just wants to get out and run around. It didn't help that we turned around and took a fairly long car ride to get where we wanted to visit Friday morning.
But Grandma had plenty of "new" toys (really just my old ones) to play with and the journeys out of the house always had something to discover. Friday we drove to eastern Ohio and ate lunch in a historic village before taking a horse-pulled canal boat ride at Roscoe Village. We never quite made to any of the shops or other history before the meltdowns started. Which was fine though. We had a pizza/cake party for Cole's birthday planned with some family friends coming over to meet the kids for the first time.
Saturday I woke up and did 16 miles on the new-since-I-lived-there multi-use trail. It actually ended up being 15 miles because the trail isn't well-marked yet and there are a few intersections that dead end either into weeds or suburban housing developments. It was a good run with negative splits coming home, however, which is a mini goal of mine for race day. Really, I'm aiming to just not go out too hard like I always do. Even splits would be nice. But slower first half and then finishing strong would be perfect.
It was hot still when we got to the farm Saturday afternoon, but we'd arrived early so Cole had some time alone with the cows and tractors. He had a particular favorite calf in the barn that he kept going back to visit multiple times. I've never seen him so excited. We made it through the meal, barely, before it was bedtime and we needed to start home though. My mom had the good idea of giving us a key to her place though so she could stay. At least the kids were good for the ceremony.
Sunday we had planned on a visit to the zoo with Grandpa's family, but it rained in the morning with a forecast for continuing to the afternoon. Naturally, the sun ended up coming out. We drove to Grandpa's house across town and spent some time in his backyard though. Cole got to pick fresh strawberries from the garden and meet my sister's hamster.
Cole's never said so much as he did over the weekend with all the new excitement.
We left very early Monday morning to arrive back to Chicago in time to pick up the 'hound from the kennel. The kids were actually perfect on the way home aside from an ill-advised stop for lunch. No tantrums. It was actually worse in some ways...Cole was just misbehaving. Though we've started to work in the new "no pacifier, no bottle" rules per doctor's orders and it maybe wasn't the best idea to start offering milk in a straw cup on the road trip. It just set up an "I don't even want french fries" attitude. Which you know is bad when a 2 year old refuses fries.