Dinner T

There were lots of foods to choose from for T dinner, but from a variety of different styles, so we ended up with a fairly random concoction tonight! Although, I guess lots of these letter dinners have been somewhat random...

teriyaki tofu and turnip

tater tots

tilapia tacos on
toasted tortillas with
tomato and
tabasco

toffee trifle with
Toblerone

tangerine
tamarillo
Tetley tea

Muskoka Waterfall Tour

    This weekend Josh had a bunch of recording and music stuff lined up, so I took the girls to hang out at my mom's. We had been talking about doing a tour of some Muskoka parks and waterfalls for a while, so we decided today was as good as any to do that. We had such a great day just driving around Muskoka and being outdoors. I'm feeling high on summer right now. <3 And this song that my mom had introduced to the girls, The Fox - by Nickel Creek, was the song of the day. We listened to it many times. The girls love it.

     First stop was Muskoka Falls, just south of Bracebridge. The falls, although mostly under the bridge, were impressive and quite loud, and there was a quiet little beach there that was nice, too.

     Our second stop was High Falls. The girls were getting hungry, so we had a snack, but this one was not all that preschooler friendly, so Rachel in particular did not really enjoy herself. She didn't want to wear her lifejacket, but the rocks were slippery and dropped off quickly, so I wasn't willing to compromise on that. Laura slipped when she was climbing (on the dry rocks) and gave herself a nice bruise on her thigh, but eventually got sure-footed enough to enjoy herself. I think we should have maybe waited until they were a little older to try that one. After that we went for lunch. I told mom I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't been before, so she took us into Bracebridge to the Riverside Inn. It was a dated old dining room, but the food was decent. Everyone felt better after we had eaten.

    Third up, we stopped on the side of the road to view the Bracebridge Falls. Laura didn't get out of the car, and it was just a quick stop.

      Our fourth stop was Wilson's Falls, which are supposedly the nicest in Muskoka. We had a bit of a hard time finding the way into the falls, and never actually got up really close to the biggest part, but we still had fun. There was a smaller portion at the top of the falls that we paddled around in a little, and then we climbed down to the river below and the girls swam there. We should have had their life jackets with us again so they could have gone a little deeper into the river; there wasn't a lot of shallow water for them to play in there. They still really liked it, though. Mom said she would want to go back and tube down the river, which I think would be fun. :)

     We then drove over to Bala, and the girls fell asleep on the way (they were tired from staying up late at Grandma's the night before). The fifth falls we saw were the Bala Falls. I had accidentally driven to Bala earlier this summer and I swore I had seen a beach there, so we went looking for it after the falls. The girls were looking forward to being able to swim and not have to worry about slipping on rocks or getting caught in the current. Alas, there was no beach there, but a friendly man who owned a kayak and canoe rental place offered us use of his boat launch for them to get wet.

     Our last falls of the day was Big Chute. The falls there were, again, under a bridge, so you couldn't see a lot of them, and we had arrived after the marine railway had closed for the day. We walked to the bottom of the it, and also up to the observation deck to view the whole thing. Grandma was adamant that we needed to come back again during operating hours so the girls could see it in action.
We stopped for dinner on the way home at a rest stop on the 400 extension. It was a really nice day, and I'm glad we got around to doing it.

Dinner S

There were lots of options for S! We did it on the quick, though, and with minimal planning, this is what we came up with:

spicy salmon and shrimp sushi

soup

spinach salad with:
summer sausage
soybean sprouts
swiss 
snow peas

strawberry shortcake

ALL the States!

While planning our second road trip to the States, I realized the girls would have been to 16 of the 50 States by the time we got back. And then my compulsive nature took over and I decided it would be cool if we could have them visit every state. So here I am keeping a list of all the states and where/ when we visited them. :)
01. Alabama - Muscle Shoals (Muscle Shoals Recording Studio, May 2024)

02. Alaska

03. Arizona

04. Arkansas - Siloam Springs (Arkansas Tourist Info July 2018)
                        - Texarkana (Naaman's BBQ May 2024)
05. California

06. Colorado

07. Connecticut - Mystic (Marriott Hotel & Spa, July 2022)

08. Delaware - Brandywine Valley (SureStay by Best Western, July 2022)

09. Florida - Orlando (Disney World Feb 2012, May 2014, Nov 2016)
                    - Cape Canaveral (Disney Cruise May 2017)

                    - Pensacola (May 2024)



10. Georgia - Cleveland (Babyland General Hospital Aug 2015)
                     - Savannah (Five Guys Nov 2016)


11. Hawaii - Lahaina, Maui (Dole Whip, April 2019)

12. Idaho

13. Illinois - Chicago (Navy Pier July 2014, July 2018)





14. Indiana -  Indianapolis (BRU Burger July 2014)



15. Iowa - Des Moines (Living History Farms & Sterling Hotel & Suites July 2018)

16. Kansas - Independence (Little House on the Prairie Museum & Subway July 2018)

17. Kentucky - Fort Mitchell (The Greyhound Tavern Aug 2015)


18. Louisiana - New Orleans (May 2024)

19. Maine - Augusta (Senator Inn & Spa, Oct 2017)

20. Maryland - Oakland (Subway Aug 2015)


21. Massachusetts - Martha's Vineyard (July 2022)
                                - Boston (New England Aquarium, July 2022)
                                - Agawam (Six Flags New England, July 2022)

22. Michigan - Detroit (Belle Isle July 2014)
                        - Saint Joseph (Silver Beach July 2014)  

                       - Grand Rapids (Pearl Street Grill July 2014)
                       - Mackinac Island (Garden View Inn July 2016)
                      [-Western Michigan (Tahquamenon Falls State Park, Whitefish Point July 2016)]


23. Minnesota -Walnut Grove (Nellie's Cafe July 2018)
                        - Minneapolis (Mall of America July 2018)

24. Mississippi - Gulfport (The Chimney's Restaurant May 2024)

25. Missouri - St. Louis (Gateway Arch, Missouri Botanical Gardens July 2014)
                        - Mansfield (Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home July 2018)

26. Montana

27. Nebraska - Sioux City (Wendy's July 2018)

28. Nevada

29. New Hampshire - Concord (Oct 2017)

30. New Jersey (New Jersey Turnpike, July 2022)

31. New Mexico

32. New York - Rochester (Comfort Suites Nov 2016)
                        - Syracuse (dinner Oct 2017)
                         - NYC (Gershwin Theatre, Park Central Hotel, July 2022)

                         - Watkin's Glen (Watkin's Glen State Park, July 2022)

33. North Carolina - Raleigh (Marbles Children's Museum Aug 2015)
                                 - Asheboro (North Carolina Zoo Aug 2015)


34. North Dakota

35. Ohio - Cleveland (Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame Aug 2015) 


36. Oklahoma - Vinita (Southern Oaks Resort July 2018)

37. Oregon

38. Pennsylvania - Pittsburgh (Subway Aug 2015)
                              - Hershey (Hershey's Chocolate World, July 2022)


39. Rhode Island - Coventry (Wendy's July 2022)

40. South Carolina - Gaffney (Applebee's Aug 2015)


41. South Dakota - De Smet (Ingalls Homestead et al. July 2018)

42. Tennessee - Knoxville (Best Western Aug 2015)
                        - Nashville (Grand Ole Opry May 2024)
43. Texas - Marshall (La Quinta May 2024)

44. Utah

45. Vermont - (Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forest Oct 2017)

46. Virginia - Grottoes (Grand Caverns Aug 2015)

47. Washington 

Washington D. C. (Nov 2016)






48. West Virginia - Lost River (Lost Forest B&B Aug 2015)

49. Wisconsin - Pepin (The Pickle Barrel, Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum July 2018)
                        - Wisconsin Dells (Mt. Olympus Resort July 2018)

50. Wyoming

Road Trip!

     Last year our lovely friends who moved to North Carolina from Australia took a road trip to come and see us after six years being apart. It was such a fun week that they invited us to come and visit them this year.

We left on Friday around lunchtime and stopped at the beach in Grand Bend on our way. None of us had been there before, so it was fun to explore a new place together.  It was threatening to storm, but only ended up raining a few drops. We all had fun playing together in the water and it was a bit wavy which the kids loved. We ate dinner at a beachside restaurant. The food wasn't awesome, but the atmosphere was fun and the view was great! While we were driving, the girls were a little whiny because they knew I had lots of things for them to do and they wanted to whip through them all. We had bought a new GPS because our old one was on the fritz and Laura had helped me set it up. She had chosen a pink princess car and the navigator voice "Dr. Nightmare". At one point while we were driving, I was trying to make conversation with Laura, and asked her what she wanted her husband to be like. At that point, Dr. Nightmare piped up with "TRICK OR TREAT" in as scary a voice as you can imagine. We all thought that was fairly hilarious. We were planning to stay in Windsor with some friends that night, but once we reached Sarnia we realized the GPS wanted us to go through the States to get to Windsor. So a quick rerouting added about 40 minutes to our arrival time. Oh well. We arrived just after 8:30pm and had a nice visit. They have three boys (the oldest of which we had joked was Laura's betrothed when they were born) and they all played nicely together. I had told Laura that we were going to see her "boyfriend" and she said she thought she was going to kiss him! I told her that probably wasn't a good idea, and we should always ask people before we kiss them. I also explained that we were just joking about the boyfriend. Laura had a very hard time falling asleep that night and was up until probably about 1am. :/ At least everyone got to sleep in until about 8:30 in the morning! The kids all played together in the morning again. It was very cute. Quinn, who was having his birthday party later that day, had some Batman and Robin capes that he gave to the girls (they were party favours even though we couldn't stay for the party) and they all played a super hero make-believe game together. We got on the road just before noon and headed across the border. The border guard we dealt with was unnecessarily intimidating, went through our things, was messing with Josh and asked him my maiden name, and he yelled at me when I tried to take a picture of the "Welcome to Michigan" sign. I did not like him.
We drove through Ohio for the afternoon which was very boring and flat with not much to look at. We ended up stopping in Wapakoneta at Walmart for some more fresh snacks and a couple odds and ends we needed. There were a lot of elderly people there, and many of the older women just loved the girls and asked if they were twins (they were dressed similarly). People were quite friendly. We got back on the road and headed to Kentucky where we had planned to stop for dinner. There was a lot of construction all through Ohio, but they weren't working on it, so it didn't slow us down much. We got stuck at a bottleneck in Cincinati for about ten minutes, but that was the worst of it. We arrived at the Greyhound Tavern in Kentucky for dinner. It was much fancier than I had realized it would be, and we were notably under dressed. The girls were not on their best behaviour after being stuck in the car for so long, and a lady at the next table kept looking at them. I was trying very hard to keep peace for the sake of all the elderly people in the restaurant who may or may not appreciate small children who just wanted to get out some energy after being cooped up all afternoon. Thankfully, I was fairly successful, and when I ran into the lady in the bathroom, she remarked about how darling the girls were. Old American ladies love them. haha. We ordered two meals of fried chicken (the reason I had chosen that restaurant), which was easily enough to feed the four of us. The girls both LOVED the chicken and kept asking for more (unheard of!), and I thought it was pretty good, and normally strongly dislike chicken like that. After dinner we took a short walk to stretch our legs, and then drove through the rest of Kentucky for the evening. It was very beautiful, unlike Ohio, and we wished it didn't have to be dark out as we drove the hills and then the mountains. We didn't arrive at our hotel until 11:00 that night. Rachel had fallen asleep in the car, but Laura was still awake (she had napped earlier) and when we walked into the lobby, Rachel, in a very groggy state, said, "Where's the bed?" to the front desk lady's amusement. The girls had trouble falling asleep again, but by midnight we were all asleep. An improvement on the 1am from the previous night.

Sunday morning we woke up around 8:00. And by we I mean I. I started quietly puttering around the room, but not too quietly because we had to get on the road and people needed to wake up! We eventually got dressed and packed up and went down for breakfast, which was a nice, hot (complimentary!) breakfast. We were a bit crabby with the girls because we had to get going and they were taking forever to eat, as usual. I think we were on the road by about 9:00ish. We started driving and to our delight the GPS took us through some very epic scenery through the Smoky Mountains. We noticed there was a disproportionately large amount of churches everywhere. We ended up driving through the Smoky Mountains National Park, and on US129 which is also known as "The Tail of The Dragon". It is 11 miles of switchbacks and 318 turns. It was really fun. We couldn't believe we had just happened upon it! Tons of motorcycles were on that road; it must have been like a rollercoaster for them. There were even dudes by the side of the road taking photos of everyone driving that they sell to you later. Josh loved it, and when we came to the end, there was a little shop, and he decided he wanted to get a souvenir. I told him it wasn't as cool in a van, but he didn't care. ;) We crossed into a small section of North Carolina, and then into Georgia, which was all so amazingly beautiful. We just couldn't get enough of the scenery. We drove up another crazy mountain road on our way to Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia, and through a small town called Helen which Josh said looked like a German village out of Disney World or something. They had a place there where people were tubing down the river/ creek, lazy river style and then a bus would take them back up to the start. It looked sooooo fun and we wished so badly that we had time to stop and do that. But we were already running behind schedule because we had stopped a couple times through the national park and we couldn't actually drive as fast as the limit says because of all the turns. We thought if we were ever back in the area it would be great to go back and spend a little more time!
We arrived at Babyland at about 2:00 and the kids were grumpy from all the driving already. Rachel really wanted to fall asleep but we didn't let her before we got there. Anyway, I LOVED Babyland, it was so cute. The girls loved it too. We got to see a real Cabbage Patch Kid being born. The audience named him Daniel Benjamin. I wish I could have taped it but the camera that takes video was out of batteries. Anyway, it was really cute and lots of puns about giving birth. Right up my alley. ;) The girls got to pick a newborn Cabbage Patch doll. I told them I like to pick them based on their names, and so we went through every single one. Laura kind of wanted the one named Mario (because her current obsession is Mario Kart), but then she decided she wanted a girl one - the one named Kayla - even though that is the name of the other Cabbage Patch Kid she already has.... whatever. So now she has a newborn Kayla Emily and a bigger one, Kayla Emersyn. I steered Rachel to pick one called Brianna Ariel, because I love the name Brianna, and Ariel is the name of Rachel's favourite swimming teacher, plus it had the same outfit and hair as the one she had picked out to begin with, so I thought it was a great choice. Mom and I had also made the girls matching dresses and matching dresses for their dolls, Kayla and Alexandra. The ladies who worked at Babyland thought they were so cute they wanted to take a photo with one of the delivery nurses. I was one pleased mama. :D I had way too much fun there. Then it was back in the car for another haul over to South Carolina where we had planned to stop for dinner. There was a little more traffic and the drive wasn't nearly as pretty. We were driving through the "peach belt" I called it, and there were signs everywhere about peach this and peach that. One of them was advertising where you could buy them and said at the bottom "closed Sundays". Lots of places there are closed Sundays, but we laughed and Josh started singing a made up song about how Jesus wouldn't sell peaches on Sundays. Love that guy. <3 And when we came to the place we had planned for dinner, it was closed because it was Sunday!!  I couldn't believe it, especially after that had happened last year!I thought I had checked so carefully this time! Anyway, it didn't matter;we just ended up going down the street to Applebee's, which was fine. And funnily enough, they don't serve alcohol on Sundays either - anywhere in that county. So no beer for Josh with dinner. Anyway, dinner was adequate but nothing special. Back on the road to Raleigh we noticed that lots of people do not use blinkers. Crazy. Also, there were full on shotgun holes in some of the road signs. Yep. We arrived at about 10:40, not a big improvement over last night. The girls were whiny when trying to fall asleep in the car before we arrived, fighting over whose lullaby CD was better, hahaha. So ridiculous. Once we got the girls to bed, Josh was really excited to look up our pictures from Tail of the Dragon.

Stayed up until 1:00 on Sunday night which was a mistake because I felt fine and awake when I woke up but at about 11:00am I crashed and was tired and probably not a very good guest for several hours then. We had headed over to Sarah's around 10:00am and the kids were so excited to hang out and play together again. At one point Lily and Laura were excluding Archie and upset him, but for most of the day they all played nicely together. We had tacos for lunch and then at around 2:00 we went to the pool for a swim. Josh got pretty burnt being the whitey he is, but it was really nice and perked me up a bit. Came back and got changed. Archie had a nap and the girls watched a movie, and R fell asleep on the couch. Bob came home and he brought an energy with him that just picked us up. He said how happy he was we were here and got everybody drinking (except pregnant Sarah). We had pulled pork for dinner which was yummy and then after dinner we went outside and sat in the cul de sac while the kids played with outside toys. The Maidens kids have ride on jeeps, so they were all playing around on those. Eventually our kids got a turn to drive, and Laura totally loved them. It was almost like real life Mario Kart! Then Rachel got a turn to drive and accidentally drove over Archie's toes because she was easily distracted. It was sad and funny at the same time. He was really upset and limping for a while after, and she was upset that she had accidentally hurt him. But she had a blast driving the jeep around. It was pretty cute. Eventually all the neighbours came out and it became somewhat of a street party. The flirtatious neighbour came out and was living up to her reputation with Josh. They were chatting about his music and stuff and she was very come on-ish about the bands he listens to/ likes. It was amusing only because I had been sufficiently warned beforehand. Her husband eventually lit into her about her social "retardedness" which was fairly amusing to me after the stories Bob and Sarah had told us. Her husband also told me that my husband was awesome. I said, "Yeah, I get that a lot." :) haha. Anyway, it was a fun evening (and day) and we headed back to the hotel just before 10:00 so in theory we could get a good sleep and early start to the zoo tomorrow.

Tuesday morning the girls were so tired, they were still sleeping at 8:15 and I had to wake them so we could get over to the Maidens' for 9:00. We packed up the car and headed to the zoo, but it was nearly 11:00 by the time we got there. We walked around for a bit, but several animals were off exhibit, which was a bit sad. We did get to do the animatronic dinosaurs though which were pretty neat! We then had lunch (in the air conditioning!) and went on the carousel. The girls really liked it and wanted to go again so they could pick different animals to ride on. We also did a short Sponge Bob 4D movie which terrified the kids (Laura lost it when they went into the perfume factory and got spritzed with real water). We then saw some more animals and everyone got very hot and tired so we hit up the little splash pad creek after and everyone got some more life in them. Sarah and I chatted with another pregnant mama. I have been surprised at how friendly everyone in the South is; so many people will just strike up a conversation with you. Its nice :). We got some cold treats after that and quickly did the arctic display and had fun watching the puffins. Then took the tram back to the entrance (in the air conditioned bus!). The girls sang several verses of the wheels on the bus while we drove. We left after that as everyone was quite tired. The girls both fell asleep within minutes of getting into the car and we had a nice quiet drive back. We stopped at Target for a couple groceries and then back to Bob and Sarah's where we had BBQ for dinner. Super yum. Then we went to the pool after dinner, which was fun with both the dads there. They had a cannonball competition and asked me to document it photographically. Laura is doing a really phenomenal job with her swimming, since she can't quite touch the bottom of the pool, she has been practicing her floatie-less swimming and doing really well. We tried to convince her to go off the diving board without her lifejacket, but she isn't quite confident enough yet, even though I'm sure she could do it. Rachel floated happily in Lily's blow up ring in the deep water, so it was nice that I could watch the guys on the diving board. Before we were getting ready to leave, I tossed Laura up in the water and her nose started bleeding. That was awkward, the lifeguard chased us down in the bathroom to make sure she was alright. :/ We went back to Sarah and Bob's and let the girls have a bath together and then we headed back to the hotel.

Wednesday morning we had planned to let the girls sleep in because Sarah had a doctors appointment and we were going to meet them at lunch time at the children's museum in Raleigh. But the girls woke up around 8:15 anyway. We went down and got breakfast together in the lobby and then we came back up to get ready for the day. I was going to go out to Target for a bit to get a few things we needed and buy some summer clearance clothes for Laura for next year, and Josh was going to take the girls swimming in the hotel pool. When we were getting ready to go downstairs again, the girls went to push the elevator button while we were still trailing behind and ended up getting into the elevator without us. I heard them screaming from down the hall as the door started to close. We were only on floor three and it was about 10:00 on a Tuesday morning, so I wasn't worried anything would happen to them other than they would learn their lesson to wait for us. They both screamed their heads off as they went down to the ground floor, and attracted all kinds of housekeeping staff. Josh came down the hall and we both just looked at each other and laughed. I went down in the other elevator and met them at the bottom where two very concerned housekeeping staff were trying to calm them. The girls were very upset, so we had a little hug for a few minutes and talked about why they need to wait for us. I had a nice time shopping by myself, but apparently it didn't go well at the hotel pool because they had to wear their life jackets because it was so deep and they didn't like that. We headed downtown late (due to my extended shopping excursion) and Josh got really stressed about trying to find somewhere to park. Eventually we found somewhere but we were almost an hour later than we were supposed to be. Anyway, the museum was overstimulating when we arrived and we were feeling stressed, so Josh went on his own to the cafe to calm down and have a beer. I talked to Sarah for a bit while the kids played. The museum was really quite neat and the kids were having fun, but they hadn't had lunch so eventually we went to meet Josh in the cafe. We had some food and then Josh was feeling calmer so we went back in. The girls were tired though, and Rachel, especially, was having a hard time listening to instructions, so after a few more rooms we played in, we headed out. We went back to Sarah and Bob's and hung out until Bob got home from work. We had yummy chicken and roasted veggies for dinner and hung out in the cul de sac again. The kids were playing with the motorized cars, but eventually got so tired that they were not being safe with them, and we had to put them away. Bob and Josh had gone off to meet another neighbour, and Josh had to be retrieved because the girls were so tired and losing it and needed to go to bed. It was dark by then and Laura had run off when we weren't looking and we couldn't find her for a minute "because she wanted to be alone". Yep, it was time to go. We had a rough ride back to the hotel but everyone went to bed much earlier than they had been so hopefully tomorrow will be better.

The girls woke up around 8:30 Thursday morning but I wasn't in a hurry to go visit because we all needed some chill time. The kids watched TV for a while, I finished sewing the velcro on Archie's cape to give him at his birthdayparty, and then we headed over around 11:00. Bob was working from home because Sarah didn't feel awesome and they had to get the things ready for Archie's party. (They were having it way early because he wanted a pool party, and the pool is closed in October). I helped Sarah do up the favours (pool noodles with minion colouring books and fruit snacks). Josh went out to find a cable we needed for the girls' DVD players because we had tried to order one on Amazon and thought it didn't work (although it showed up later in their mailbox anyway which was really annoying.) Anyway, Sarah and I hung out and chatted while he was gone and the kids played all day long. At about 2:30 it started to thunderstorm and the pool closed. We were all hoping it would blow over, but every time it would brighten up it would start storming again a little bit later, so Sarah told all the guests just to come to their house and the kids could play outside. It was still raining for a bunch of the party but several of the kids were just happy to play outside in the cul de sac and the others played inside. They had pizza and cake and were very loud and happy. Archie was really cute opening all his gifts and seemed quite happy with his cape and his Big Hero 6 set of toys we got him. Lily was also very excited about her belated birthday present we brought her of Inside Out figurines. Almost as soon as the last guests had left the party, Sarah and Bob's little people friends arrived for dinner and games, but it was pretty fun even without the recoup period after the party. The kids played together quite nicely for the evening, which was appreciated. At one point Rachel came out of the bathroom with her pants around her ankles and tried to give Bob a sticker. He said, "Oh thank you so much, and would you like to pull your pants up?" lol. We played a game called Exploding Kittens which was fairly ridiculous, but fun enough. We had planned for the kids to go to bed at their house and we would scoop them up when we were ready to leave but they never actually went to sleep and we left at almost midnight. They brushed their teeth when we got back to the hotel and crashed immediately. We packed up a little bit and tried to get as many things ready to go in the morning as possible.

Friday morning we hustled to get out the door in time to say goodbye to Bob before he left for work. We grabbed dry cereal from downstairs for the kids and jumped in the car, but we just missed him, unfortunately. Sarah was annoyed we didn't tell her we were coming over because they were still in bed when we got there at 9:30 (we had told them the night before when we left that we would be coming back to say goodbye in the morning and were aiming to catch Bob, though). The girls went inside to play and Josh watched them while I cleaned out and organized the car for the trip home. Sarah helped and kept me company. We headed out around 10:45 and drove to the Grand Caverns in Grottoes, Virginia. We got there just in time for the 3:30 tour, which was the one I had planned to be there for. It was nice to be on schedule. ;) The caves were pretty neat and it was interesting to hear the history about them. Laura was a little apprehensive and said she was scared, but Rachel loved them and was running ahead of the tour group! We drove over to West Virginia after that and had planned to meet the stand-in inn keeper at 6:30, but it was only about 6:15 when we got there, so we decided to try to quickly go for dinner beforehand, because we were supposed to be sleeping in a treehouse and they wanted you to check in before dark. We headed out to the Lost River Grill, which was very small townish, fairly busy, and not really that great. I ordered trout, which was a mistake because it was served very fishy and barely edible. The girls had spaghetti and meatballs, but not GF, so we didn't encourage them to eat the noodles. Josh had a burger and he said it was good, but overall it was probably the worst meal we had on the whole trip. We got back to the B&B around 7:30, but had left a note for the inn keeper telling him where we'd gone. He hadn't come in the front door, though, and hadn't seen the note. But, they didn't seem annoyed at all, and were very friendly. They took us out back to the treehouse to show us, and told us we were welcome to stay in the house if we changed our minds because it was quite damp in the treehouse after two days of rain. It was much higher up than I expected and made me nervous with the girls being so little. We all climbed up and checked it out. The girls did fine and seemed pleased enough with the idea, but because it was so high I was a bit wary, and Josh wasn't super keen on the idea because he didn't think he would get a good sleep out there and we had a lot of driving to do the next day. And since it was only a stand-in inn keeper, we would actually have the whole big house completely to ourselves for the night, which was quite appealing at that point. So we opted out of the treehouse this time. We made ourselves comfortable in one of the rooms in the house and the inn keepers went back to their place after showing us around. We gave the girls a bath and put them to bed and relaxed in the big living room for the evening. I worked on posting pictures and things and Josh watched TV.

In the morning on Saturday, the inn keepers came back to make breakfast for us with eggs from the chickens on site. Josh had his morning coffee and played guitar on the front porch facing the mountains as the mist cleared. The breakfast was pretty yummy, and we got on our way just before 9:00. We drove all morning through the misty mountains of West Virginia and then through a corner of Maryland. We stopped at a Subway in Oakland for a bathroom break and a snack, and then headed through Pennsylvania up to Pittsburgh. We had planned to get some lunch and eat it at Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh, where there is a beautiful fountain at the point where three rivers meet. But the highway into the city was closed, and they had extremely poorly managed detours through the city that were completely bogged down with traffic and barely moving. Josh hadn't been overly keen to drive into the city at all, and the detour + traffic made it much worse. We attempted to drive up parallel streets to bypass the traffic, but every time we came to another ramp onto the highway it was still closed. Finally we came across a traffic cop and asked him if we were ever going to be able to get on the highway and he told us the detour would take us another hour still to get where we wanted to go, so we finally abandoned our plan and found a different park outside of the city to eat our lunch. Everyone was a bit grumpy by then as we were behind schedule and hungry. The girls, however, did not want to eat their lunch at the park because they wanted to play on the playground, and we didn't have time to fight them, so Josh and I just ate and got back on the road. We headed back into Ohio and up to Cleveland. Between Pittsburgh and Cleveland our back right indicator light burnt out. We arrived in Cleveland about when I had scheduled us to be leaving. Our brakes were also now grinding terribly when we had to stop, and even when we didn't. People downtown Cleveland were staring at us. We went into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame and the girls were now quite grumpy and poorly behaved because they had fallen asleep in the car and now were very hungry since they never ate their lunch. We should have just tried to get them to eat their sandwiches before we went in, but we were so behind schedule as it was that we didn't. I was on edge because we didn't have much time to spend there and the girls were acting badly. Josh was upset because I was hurrying him through and this was the one thing we were doing on the trip that was for him. I asked him to pick a few specific exhibits he wanted to see and we would have to save the rest for later. The girls eventually calmed down a bit, so we did end up seeing mostly everything, but Josh still felt like he was rushed through. We headed out again towards Niagara Falls, which was our final destination of the day, just before 8:00pm. As we were driving, both the oil light and the gas light came on in the car, and on top of all the other stressors we had had that day, we thought that maybe calling it quits instead of trying to drive another three hours would be best. We attempted to find a hotel in the little corner of Pennsylvania we had to drive through again, and after checking three different ones without any luck, we gave up and decided to power through to Niagara. We stopped at a McDonald's to use the wifi and let Josh's cousin know we were going to be quite late. I felt horribly rude arriving after midnight, but there wasn't a lot we could do at that point. I didn't let Josh stop at the duty free because we were so late already, and he was not happy about that. We got there around 12:45 and put the girls right to bed. We chatted with Josh's cousin and his wife for a few minutes and then headed to bed ourselves. Luckily the girls didn't wake up until after 8:00 again the next morning. They got up and we had breakfast. Rachel was acting quite off and being insubordinate about everything. I think she was coming down with the cold that Archer and Sarah had. We walked down to the Falls; I carried Rachel in the Ergo (I think I use that thing more than when Rachel was a baby!), and Laura walked. Josh was stressing because the Falls were busy with people and he just wanted to get home. We stopped on the way back up the hill to get a DQ treat and then went back to pack up our stuff and head home. We got snagged in some accident traffic, so went another way, through Hamilton to get home. We got back just before dinner time.

Trip Stats:
12 states
52 hours driving
4086km

$450 on gas
$400 on food
$415 on entertainment and souvenirs
$400 in car maintenance afterward :/

Dinner R

Lots of food begins with R so we had plenty to choose from; so many that we didn't incorporate all the things we thought of because we are going away and didn't want it all to sit in our fridge and rot while we're gone. I had planned to roast a rabbit with rosemary, too, but the store was out of them. Oh well.

We had

a "red" salad of:

romaine

red peppers

red delicious apples

red potatoes

radishes

radicchio
roma tomatoes

raisins

ramen noodles

ranch dressing

ricotta ravioli with Ragu

root beer floats with raspberries

Dinner Q

Q was another tough one. We came up with:

quail quesadillas
with quark cheese

quinoa pudding


Not the most summery meal. But hey, we work with what we've got. :)