July Trip to Ohio

In July we packed the whole family into the minivan and headed west for Ohio. We decided this year to drive instead of fly. Personally I prefer to drive as I hate flying. We had planned to leave in the afternoon on July 3rd and arrive in the early morning (it's about a 10 hour drive) on July 4th. The boys were all going to go to a Cincinnati Reds game with their cousins on the 4th and the bus that would take them there was leaving at 10am. At the last minute Cory had a little league game rescheduled for the evening on July 3rd. Cory was already going to miss 6 games while we were away so we felt compelled to not miss any more.

So we went to Cory's game in Warren and after the game (we lost) at about 8pm we all loaded into the car and started our trek. Julie took her turn driving first since: 1) I can stay awake later than she can, 2) she hates to drive at night and 3) I hate it when she drives at night. A few hours in I took over and drove through till about 5am. At that point no amount of coffee or Red Bull was keeping me alert enough so Julie took over for the last hour.

Once we arrived, Julie and I immediately headed for some quality shut eye. It took a while for the caffeine to burn its way out of my system, but by mid afternoon I was good to go. In all, we spent 5 days with Julie's family and we had a great time. We hit all the regular activities – fishing, miniature golf, play at the park, swim at the town pool, bbq's, wiffle ball games and campfires.

Julie and I also took had our 2nd annual "Shoot 'em up" with Julie's uncle Jim. Last year during our visit Jim took us to his favorite gun shop / shooting range where for the first time ever Julie and I fired live rounds from hand guns, along with Jacqui and Lindsay. Which was cool. This year, the ante was upped a bit as Jim brought out his Mac 10 submachine gun and his Mauser 98 rifle. No range this time, we headed to Don and Jan's backyard and fired them there. Firing the submachine gun was really cool and the Mauser was lots of fun too. After we kids had our fun Julie's mom, dad and brother Doug took a turn. If anyone wants to see what Grandma looks like pumping 20 rounds per second from a Mac 10 into a gravel pile, I have photo evidence! Next year Jim is going to have to reach deep into his bag of tricks to keep us entertained. I'm thinking perhaps a flamethrower or a howitzer…hmmmm…which to choose?

Another first for us – we all got our turn taking a Combine ride with Don while he harvested his wheat fields. With a 20 foot wide cutting head on it, that Combine is an impressive machine. Cory, Ryan and Jason each had their turn taking a ride with Don, as did Julie and I. The boys will all have something fun and unique to write about in our "what I did this summer" assignments in school.

Pictures from our trip can be found here:

July 2008 Trip to Ohio