we finally made to Longaberger basket on tuesday. You get to walk thru the factory and watch people make all different kinds of baskets and again you could smell the wood. After that we found a little town called Roscoe in the middle of amish country. The town was from the late 1800s and was were the canal boats went down the ohio I think. We got there kind of late so we didn't take the tours. It was home school day and we got to follow this cute group of amish girls, they stopped and smelled lilacs with mom. (the rule w/ pictures & amish- if you feel you have to photograph them they ask you do not get their faces in the photos) Smitty happened to call and we used him to get us a cheap hotel on Canton, oh for the night. we scored big time! The hotel was right next to the First Ladies museum- so took a quick tour this morning and then took mom to the airport. what a week

fountain in german town
floats for kentucky derby parade



hannah & Olivia

so sunday and monday were my I'm done days. we had a ton more to see in Louisville but we didn't realize that all the tourist places are closed on Sundays and mondays. On monday it was raining and everything was still closed so I was ready to leave louisville but we had to get a picture of Hannah & Olivia in their official blazers, they kept running away from us but they finally stuck a pose and then we were out of there!! we tried to salvage the day by finding this little german town to eat lunch @ in Cincinnati but it was also closed!! so we went to the outlet mall instead.

Sunday- ohio falls. didn't get the memo it was closed
lynn's
lynn's
lynn's
conditions: sloppy

it was rainy- all the way from seattle

party @ joe's crab shack

ok so day three was really busy. We planned on 'running' into hannah @ church hill downs so we ran over and explored what we could of downtown before that. we went to the slugger museum so I could take pictures of all things baseball for Smitty. The tour is awesome! It's $10 bucks you go into the actual factory and watch them make bats (it smelled of wood, which I love) and you get a 12" at the end of the tour. They also have batting cages and a ton of interactive things. we found all sorts of cool art and the cornel sanders museum. BEfore we went to run into hannah we had appetizers @ joe's crab shack where we were thrown int the middle of a dance party. @ church hill downs we had to beg my sister to come out of her reserved box seat and hang out in the trenches with us. It poured almost the entire time we were there but all we could think about was how much we needed a derby hat. huh. Hannah left before we did and she texted me about lynn's paradise cafe and how cool it was outside so we went over there to eat. Mom and I were there for almost two hours before we realized hannah was sitting about 20 feet from us. ha ha ha.

Day 2- a little disappointing

We got up early and went to the topiary gardens, cool huh? The boats on the lake had not filled in yet but the rest was great. I got really excited while planning for this trip because I kept finding sites for flea markets to visit. I really want to go to a flea market an dig thru people's trash. The two that we tried were not at all flea markets. So we tried to find something else to do- it took all day find something. We finally tried to find a couple of covered bridges but it was a bust until the very last one. It was huge and really old and we were able to drive over it, unlike to one in PA. After a big day of nothing we found our hotel, in the middle of nowhere and crashed.

mom and me road trip day 1

Longaberger headquarters
old blue eyes grabbing a little side boob
aren't the jars cool? there was a whole chandelier of red jars above me

we just happened upon this place, if you know my mom you know it's a big deal
lame looking mascot but what the hey

SO we started our road trip a little late today and only got lost once. We spent way to much time @ smuckers and will have to head to longaberger baskets on the way back. We started a new road trip bingo game this one now includes plastic goats, 25 foot inflatable pink bunny, amish people plowing with horses and neon orange eagles. we made it to Columbus and found a huge outdoor mall (Heaven!!) where we went to CPK and saw Date Night (super funny) Random comment- In Orrville, OH were Smuckers and the Cat's Meow are the high school mascot is called the Smithies- love you babe!

It's Easter time in the city

Smitty was given a day and a half off from school around the weekend so we took advantage of it and headed to Maren & Ryan's for Easter and conference.
We started our trip off with a visit to the DC temple. It is huge!! We got lost a lot inside.
AND to meet our new niece Lucy.
She loved Smitty!! She would talk and talk with him. My fav story about her- we were driving home from sushi and Lucy was not having a happy moment. (She does not like her car seat) Maren said she likes music so Smitty pulled out his phone and the first song he found was by Rise Against (they are my favorite band, for reals) It was a slow acoustic song, they only have two like that. It instantly calmed her down we could not get over it. Towards the end of the song the guitar stops and you only hear the singer for about 20 sec; Lucy started crying again until the guitar came back on. I found it quite comical.
The weather was amazing and the cherry blossoms are in bloom so we at some Panda Express and met Ryan at the mall so we could go walk thru the cherry blossoms.
It was so nice to just relax, spend time with family and have Smitty not stuck in a building all day.