After roughly five days on the road toward Boston, we made it to Ohio! (Or Nohio as Atticus calls it.) My brother, Jonathan and his wife, Jen have been living in Dayton while Jonathan completed his residency program. We hadn't seen them in over a year and we miss them. So it was awesome to be able to stop there for a few days. Jonathan is my next older brother and he's always taken care of me and supported me. He's this obnoxious, dorky annoying older brother, and as an adult and dad he is amazing. I really look up to both him and Jen. They are rocking this parenting thing. Also, it was great for my kids as their son, Jonah, is only a year older than Atticus and they love each other. (See: the last time they were in town for Jameson's wedding and the silly, fun, terrors they were together.) Also, Mary is only slightly less than a year older than Jonny and that was so much fun to see the two of them play together. Also, I took a million pictures and I guess I will sort of apologize for the fact that I put so many here. Some of which are nearly the exact same.
Pink bath for everyone!
We got to meet baby Micah. Jonny was thrilled as she is all about babies these days. I was thrilled because oh my gosh, he is cute! He is the most smiley baby there ever was and I could've just played with him the entire time.
We got to Ohio on October 29th so we got to spend Hallowen with our Williams' cousins. (More on that later) In anticipation of our arrival they went out and got each of us a pumpkin to carve. So much fun and chaos.
Atticus was super grossed out about carving pumpkins last year. Like, refused to gut it out and just kept whining "Ew, ew, ew" the whole time. So this year was an improvement. I think being with Jonah helped.
Their Jack-O-Lanterns
Just eating some breakfast.
This is my brother. He is great. And Jonny adored him. Almost as good as grandpa!
The kids ditched a day of school (We must be bad influences) and we went to The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery
They wheeled out a science experiment for the kids. Atticus LOVES doing "science mixperiences" so this was awesome.
Working on her Parseltongue. (Mind the glass)
This girl loves to do ballet. So this was a great thing to find right by where Atticus was working on his science experiment. (And is it horrible that I am so excited to shove her into ballet classes?)
Jonny and Mary doing a little grocery shopping.
The hurricane machine!
A bunch of hardened criminals.
Okay so I don't know what the deal was but Atticus was terrified of the sloth in the little zoo area. Like it was up high, on a branch, sleeping, behind glass, and the kid was terrified! I was being a mean mom and trying to coax him closer.
Jonny loved the meerkats.
Ohio is gorgeous. This was at the end of my brother's road. They walked around picking wildflowers for me. (Did I mention this was the first week of November?)
I want to keep him.
Atticus thought this wagon was the greatest and he played with it every chance he got.
Playing babies.
Atticus and Jonah.
We also went to Carriage Hill Farm which is a farm that's run by their parks and rec department in Dayton (I think that's how it worked). What? Ohio is awesome!
Jonny loves animals.
Feeding them grass.
Ohio is gorgeous. Did I mention that?
Peaking into the barn.
This is Anna. She's Jonathan's oldest and she is such a smart, cute little thing. She's 7 years old and she hardly had her nose out of a book the entire time we were there.
Racing.
Anna wanted Atticus to sleep in her room. The first time they tried, my kid was too obnoxious and I had to remove him. But we let them try again on our last night and it went much better.
This is what I woke up to on our last day there.
I'm so grateful I was able to stop and see Jonathan and Jen. They're good people. I'm especially glad because Jonathan's residency ends in June and then he will be put on an air force base to work for the next four years, possibly overseas. So who knows when I'll get to see them next.
