This was Emma's first trip to Ohio to see a lot of my extended family. Since it takes almost 13 hours to get there, we decided that we should stop at the half way point (St. Louis) and spend the night. This worked out okay...Emma didn't want to sleep in her pack-n-play, so we put her in bed with us...that ended up being a very fun thing for her and it took her a long time to get to sleep. Once she finally fell asleep, she was taking up 3/4 of the king size bed. Anyway, we all got some rest and were ready to go the next morning. We ended up getting to Cincinnati that afternoon. We stayed at my Grandma Wendling's house (my mom's mom). My grandma had had knee replacement surgery and was recovering in a nursing facility, so she didn't get to be at her house with us. But, we visited her at least once every day we were there. We also went to my Aunt Lorraine's and Uncle Brent's house for a visit and for dinner. They showed us their garden where they had tons of produce. There's a picture of Emma with one of the largest zucchinis I've ever seen. We also drove out to my cousin's, Andrew, house. He has his own house which sets on a bit of land in the country. It was nice and quiet out there. We went to the Cincinnati Zoo and the Children's Museum with my Aunt Tina and cousin, Carly. The zoo is so nice and Emma had a lot of fun seeing all the animals. The Children's Museum is amazing...so much for her to see and do. I think we'll have to visit these two places each time we go to Cincinnati.
After our visit to Cincinnati, we drove up to Springfield, Ohio to see my dad's side of the family. We were having a Pitzer (my grandma Bartley's side) reunion. We drove up a day before my mom and dad so we could spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa Bartley and Aunt Cindy. It was my grandparents first time to meet Emma. We talked, played and went out to dinner. My sisters both flew in to Ohio to be there for the reunion...so, we met up with them the next day. My grandma had everything organized....a beautiful place, a baby photo board (where we had to guess everyone's baby pictures), the food, pictures, etc. She had even made us a scrapbook of special notes and memories throughout our lives. I will treasure that forever! It was SO great to see many people who we haven't seen in years. I wish we all lived much closer to one another.
We left Springfield at 5:30 pm the day of the reunion to head home to Tulsa. Brandon was determined to drive straight through and I was determined to stay awake the entire time. Well, I didn't stay awake...I may have slept an hour or two. But, Emma slept almost the entire way home. We ended up pulling into our drive-way at 4:30 in the morning....it took us 12 hours (with the time difference). Even though Emma had slept almost the entire way, she was still able to go back to sleep in her bed until 8:30....that meant that we were able to get a few hours of sleep too. Overall, we had a great time with family!
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