Jul 06 2009
Three Days in Cleveland
We’re back in Chicago after spending our Fourth of July weekend in Cleveland, Ohio. We were in the suburb of Brecksville (just south of Independence), visiting Julie’s Uncle Rick and Aunt Gail and her cousins Liz and Alex.
Instead of driving our own cars, we decided to rent an SUV/crossover with three rows of seats. I think it definitely offered more space than trying to fit Julie, Jonah, her parents and me into one of our cars. Our first day there, we got settled in and had a wonderful dinner of ribs with some more of Julie’s extended family, including her Aunt Lori and Uncle Jim, who also live in the area. Jonah even ate a rib right off the bone, which made me proud.
They were nice enough to pull out old toys from storage and one of the things that they found was a little red car that used to belong to her cousins. Jonah had a great time tooling around in that thing each day we were there. We were worried he wasn’t going to let us leave for home without it.
Jonah and his little red car from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.
The next day we took a ride up to the stables to visit a horse that Alex has been checking in on for his friend. Jonah was interested in theory but not so interested in practice. We were able to walk right up the horses and pet their noses and feed them carrots, but Jonah was really scared of them after one of them “neighed” close to us. He gave the horse one carrot but he would not pet him. However, as we were walking away, he was pointing back and said he’d like to ride one. I guess I can understand; the horses were quite large and a bit intimidating. We all decided that next time he would have to try and ride one.
Later that afternoon, we went to Jim and Lori’s estate. I really don’t have another word for it; the property was enormous. It was like Neverland Ranch, Cleveland Style. They had a make-shift baseball diamond, beanbag games, a four-wheeler, a small barn and tons of space for Jonah to run around. They even held a golf ball hitting contest complete with prizes! So yes, the property was quite large. Jonah had an absolute blast and played baseball for about three hours straight. He was enthralled watching the older kids and couldn’t get enough of hitting, pitching and running the bases. Needless to say, we were all exhausted by the end of the night, and I became officially old when we settled for watching the fireworks on television back at the house.
Unfortunately, the trip was over by the next morning and it was time to pile back in the car and drive back to Chicago. Fortunately traffic was pretty good, but there were some adventures with the I-Pass not working correctly and taking tickets out for the Ohio Turnpike. I’m glad we all got back safe and we are already looking forward to our next trip in two weeks to Michigan.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
