Summer Vacation 2012 (part 1)

I'll admit one of the reasons I haven't been blogging was the seemingly insurmountable job of going through 500+ pictures from our summer vacation.  Not that I don't want to share them...it's just an arduous and time consuming task.  I say that and then I start looking through the pictures to see how I'm going to break it up in to different posts and I'm reminded of the GREAT pictures that we took on our vacation.

We spent nearly 3 weeks between Ohio and DC back in May of this year.  The whole reason for the trip was Lisa's brother Keith getting married.  The girls had a very important role as the flower girls...a day we will never forget!  I'll get to those pictures next post.  Today I share the first few days we spent in Ohio getting to see old friends and visiting some favorite hang-out spots from our youth (pun intended).

First day we met with one of our favorite blasts from the past and Alyssa's middle namesake (is that a thing?); Renee!!  She suggested a park that we hadn't been to in 20 years.  The best part was this massive slide!  The locals know that if you bring some wax paper, it will make you go so much faster.  Obviously, the girls LOVED this slide!!

 Before you ask; no, I didn't try it.  I saw a few bigger kids go down way too fast.  They were catching air on that little bump you see in the picture above.  No way I was going to attempt that and go airborne...and end up somewhere near Cleveland.

 That night, we met up with Renee and her fam for dinner, ice cream, and feeding farm animals!  Young's Dairy if you don't know...it's a GREAT place.  It brought back lots of memories...very cool getting to watch the girls run around making memories when it seems like I was doing that as a kid just a few short years ago.

 As always, a little tentative at first and then we couldn't stop them from trying to feed or pet them.  Yes...lots of hand sanitizer that day.

"hey cow"

"HEY COWWW!!!!"

"COW!!  LOOK OVER HERE!!!"

"AAAAHHH!!!  IT LOOKED AT ME!!!"

I call the next few pictures "close-ups with farm animals".  It's a deep intellectual piece of art that puts you so close, you can actually smell them.

 There are no words for this next picture.  I knew it was going to be funny but when I saw the picture, I just about threw up dinner I was laughing so hard.  Instant classic.

 Alyssa saw everyone laughing so she wanted to try it too...so this is her attempt at licking the ice cream.

 Speaking of ice cream, time to get some!!

 I think Alyssa was happy.

 More extreme close-ups with farm animals....

 Alyssa took a 2 second break from stuffing her face to share with her sister.  It was very sweet for those 2 seconds.... 

 ...then it was back to this.

 After dessert, it seemed like a good idea to let the kids run off their sugar high.  We were taking bets on who was going to puke first but thankfully that never happened!

 I had to include this one...

"MMMOooooOOOOOO!!!

 This poor girl (no idea who she was or who she belonged to) was running around so the girls thought that meant she wanted to be chased.  At one point, she started yelling "I don't know why they're chasing me!!!  Please make them stooooooopppp!!!!!  Help me!!!!"      .....I think she was kidding.

 Final farm animal close-up.  I love this picture.

So that brings us up to the wedding rehearsal.  Get ready, there are some GREAT pictures coming up!