Summer 2014 road trip, day one!

In hopes of avoiding the seemingly inevitable cold and illnesses and limited daylight hours and traveling on thanksgiving, we decided to move our annual road trip from November to July this year. Also, Great- Grandma was sick recently and is still recovering in a rehab center; we are eager to see her!  We've spiced up the trip this time, and we are swinging way west of our normal route.  It's not that much longer in terms of drive time and seeing some new sights is exciting.

We left this morning at about 9am.  We took 75N- it was all three kids' first time in KY and Ohio.  We stopped at the Kentucky welcome center for a picnic lunch (egg salad, of course! at least for the adults).  We enjoyed a fun dinner at Skylines Chili.  It's a local chain based out of Cincinnati.  Yumm!  Coleson had a bowl of chili and I had a 3-way : spaghetti noodles, chili, and shredded cheese.  It was nice to eat somewhere different and unique.  We even bought a few cans of chili for some special dinners back home.  The kids all ordered hotdogs, despite us trying very hard to talk Ryan into chili.  We reminded him that he loves chili, chili is what this place is famous for, and that you can get hotdogs anywhere.  But he wanted hotdogs and what do ya know?  We were right!  After trying our chili he really wanted his own.  Sorry Buddy!  But we'll have some fun chili nights back home.  We also treated ourselves to funnel cake fries for dessert.

We are staying in a hotel in Columbus Ohio tonight, as well as tomorrow night.  We will have all day to explore without any big drives and no packing, hooray!  My first impressions were great.  It is July though!  Everything is lush and green and there's a nice river and old buildings, what more could you want in a city?!?  Looking forward to getting out and wandering around in the morning.  And yes, we have breakfast and an indoor pool so the kids are thrilled.

Hopefully I can update regularly with my fancy new smartphone :). Plus with all five of us in a hotel room, there's not much else to do at night.  No lights or noise or tv after bedtime.  In fact, I am writing this with my right thumb while lying on the bed with my left arm on Chloe.  Hopefully the excitement will wane and it won't take an hour on future nights to get them to sleep!