Saturday we went to the Ohio State fair.

We saw Beef cattle being judged.

We played mini golf sponsored by the American Beef Council.

We played at the Lego tent for a while.  The kids each got a free set.

Yoda enjoyed cotton candy in the rain.

Mimi and Parker went on the sky ride in the rain.

Yoda had some business to attend to. 

It stopped raining long enough to ride the Crazy Mouse.  It's Parker's favorite ride.  He triumphantly survived again this year.  The wooden wild mouse was one of my favorite rides at Lagoon 30 years ago. Did I say 30 years?  I meant 10.  The 80's were ten years ago.  Right?

Yoda enjoyed looking at the dairy cows.  We saw a pen with two calves who were less than a week old.  Yoda asked if they had hatched from eggs.

Yoda is ready to race any time, any place.

A patient OSU engineering student explaining robots to Parker.

Parker conquered the BSA ropes course.

Yoda and Mini playing with PVC pipes.  Making stuff.

We ended the day with Ice Cream cones next to the butter cow.

We had a good time.

VaCa post #1

I was the solo driver to visit family 23+ hours away.  All three kiddos did better then expected.  Parker kept busy with comic books.  Mimi kept busy with all the little fun things I packed for all three of them.  Yoda didn't love sitting still so long, but that's why I planned lots of longs stops.

Here's a few highlights of our drive out to Utah...

 We packed lots of food and ate at rest stops.  Mostly they were clean and ready for a picnic. 

Other rest stop highlights...

Day one, we played with a frog in the grass

Day two, we avoided a SNAKE!

Day three we saw this...

 I read lots of tips on driving cross country with children.  One of the tips was to go ahead and stop at the interesting places that are advertised on the side of the road.  This was our one and only interesting stop -- a giant replica of van Gogh's Sunflowers. 

 I drove for 3 days, about 8 hours each day.  We stopped early and swam in the hotel pools to tire the kiddos out before bed.  Parker:"They have a POOL?!!!  This is the BEST vacation EVER!!!"

This was by far the most scenic rest stop!  Mimi collected rocks and played with them for an hour after this stop.

Here are some other tips that I used on our car trip if you are interested...

I bought plastic trays at Walmart- the kind that you can use for breakfast in bed.  Parker and Mimi LOVED them and kept them on their laps the whole ride, even when they weren't using them to store drinks or lean a book on, just a place to rest their elbows at times.

I printed off maps for them to follow along with the drive.  It gave them a clearer picture of where the heck we were each day.

I brought along post-it notes to cover up the auto-flush sensor at the restrooms, silly but it helped Yoda feel better.

Lots of sanitizer, pop-up napkins = genius.

To prevent emergency stops for the restroom, I didn't let them have water until about an hour away from our next scheduled stop.   In 3 days of driving there was only one unplanned stop!

I brought things to color, lace, read.  Stickers, Geo boards, felt boards, dry erase boards, balloons.  Books on CD, and some movies.  The dvd player decided to stop working now and then, that was no fun, but we got by since Greg loaded up the ipod with movies.  I also printed off the license plate game, dot-to-dots, hidden pictures, and let them take 100's of photos with the camera.

More to come...

Meatless Monday

There's a thing called Meatless Monday.  This is not a regular thing in our house, but when we do happen to eat meatless on a Monday I think I'm being cool.  So if it happens now and then I may just post about about it. 

Tonight we had Black Beans & Coconut Rice found Here, at livingwellspendingless.com.  We used fresh tomatoes instead of salsa. 

Everyone liked it.  Mimi says it has all her favorites--rice, beans and tomatoes. 

In the parking lot...

While at Costo, Yoda commented on how many cars were in the parking lot
Yoda: "there's a lot of parkers"
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Sometime this week I will get together my vacation photos, hooray!

Yoda says...

Me: "Are you in your pj's?"
Yoda: "You love them."
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Yoda:"You the strong strong mommy."
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While watching America's Funniest Videos and the host was explaining something to the camera:"Is that guy talking to us?!"

A few things that happened in May

 Helmet and no bike, wearing pj's outside, and two different shoes...

 Mimi singing with all her might. 

 Greg took the kiddos to the bakery and had them design my birthday cake, so cute and yum! 

I asked Greg to sing me a song with his guitar for my birthday, it was awesome! 

Mother's day breakfast in bed and pinking shears :)

Summer

I thought the kiddos would enjoy learning how to cook something.  The goal is that they will each cook their choice 5 times this summer. 

 Mimi chose "sandwiches".  I insisted she be more specific, but she couldn't think of anything.  So I offered up grilled cheese, and she was cool with that.  She did a great job!  

 Without hesitation Parker chose spaghetti and meatballs.  He stayed with it, even though it takes a while from start to finish.  It was all very tasty. 

Also without hesitation Yoda picked pizza.  I wasn't sure he had it in him to do real dough with yeast, so we settled on English muffin pizzas.  They were a hit.