My Little Black Sweats: Weekend Getaway

Friday afternoon we packed up our van and headed down to the "big" city of Cincinnati with the kids for the weekend. John surprised me on Wednesday by telling me he had taken Saturday off work (which is a rarity for his job) and we made plans, booked a hotel, and left town for some much needed quality family time that has been lacking a bit lately. Because we knew if we stayed home we'd fill the weekend with mulching, cleaning, and projects on the to-do list instead of relaxing and having fun together. We didn't have too much of an agenda and tried not to worry about sticking to the kid's usual schedules. The hotel we stayed in downtown happened to be hosting an annual tattoo festival as well as a quilting convention so it was an interesting mix of biker dudes for the kid's to stare uncomfortably long at and old ladies to coo over them and pinch their cheeks. Every ride in the elevator came with a prayer that Eli wouldn't blurt out something awkward about our fellow passengers.

We filled our days with adventures to kid friendly hot-spots, lots of eating out, and plenty of pool time. John was in the pleasin' mood, saying yes to all the kid's requests and lavishing us with a weekend free from the budget and obsessively checking our bank accounts. Vacation daddy is a pretty fun guy, we really liked him.

Here are the photo highlights

Our city room with a view...mostly of a parking garage, but we still enjoyed it

Pool time with daddy and a few tattooed folks

You can't visit Cincinnati without indulging in some Graeter's ice cream. It is home of the original location after all.

Snuggles with daddy in our ONLY bed

Thanks to a mini-sized pack n' play that Norah could easily climb out of, we often had two snugglers in our bed

Duke Energy Children's Museum at the museum complex downtown

A beer at noon from a local brewery? Why not, we're on vacation!

This local cupcake store just looked too enticing to walk past...

so we got half a dozen of their most popular flavors to try. And I think I finished off about 4 of them

Newport Aquarium across the bridge into Kentucky. A super cool place for kids and adults

Practicing with chop sticks at an Asian restaurant

A horse-drawn carriage ride at dusk through the city. Eli begged and begged for this one and it was quite lovely.

I assure you the kids had much more fun in the carriage than you might assume from this picture, yikes!

A sleepy boy who didn't want to wake up Sunday morning

Family devotional time before breakfast on Sunday, complete with a sing-a-long of the Watoto Childrens Choir's "Cast Your Burdens" (thank you YouTube and yes, I'm sure we disrupted a few of our neighbors)

A peaceful breakfast at my favorite restaurant, First Watch, that was just a few blocks from our hotel.

And by peaceful, I mean we played a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode on my phone for the kids and had a 15 minute date of coffee drinking and conversation before our food came, Ahhh, technology!