Well we're back again, just beginning to swing back into things after another little mini-vacation. This time we made the trek to southern Ohio, most specifically Dayton, Cincinnati and Columbus to do some sightseeing and shopping. It was a pretty fast paced trip but we made the most we could of it.
Our first stop was the National Museum of the US Air Force. It had been many years since I had been there and I really wanted to check it out again after hearing that many new planes had been added. Plus it's really stroller friendly so we could wheel the boys around and check out the planes with Grammy T.
Astronaut Aidan...looking good!
F-22 Raptor.....awesome.
A couple of nice planes, the Thunderbirds F-16 and an AC-130A that Daddy's friend Mr. Jim used to fly!
Aid in a real cockpit of an F-16A! Probably won't be able to reach the rudder pedals!
Huggy bros next to the F-117A Nighthawk!
An awesome addition to the museum, the B-2 Spirit!
The Fam. The Jet. Sweet!
After the museum, we headed south down towards Cincy to hit up Ikea. Since there is not one close to us, and their stuff is cool and cheap, we just had to get some stuff. Then it was dinner, pool and bedtime. The boys (and parents and grandparent) were dead tired.
Sunday morning we all woke up ready for another fun day! Father's Day 2011 was to be spent at COSI in Columbus, Ohio with Grammy T, Grandpa John and Aunt Natalie. It was the second time in the last few years that we had made it over to COSI, and it was great fun!
Aidan and Grandpa John flying the lunar lander trying to land safely on the moon!
Me and Mookie trying to land the Shuttle on the runway. We did it!
Touch the moon Aid!
Ethan eyeing up the water play area in the "Ocean" section of the museum.
Aunt Natalie and Ethan having fun with the water features!
Mommy and E playing with the laminar flow water jets!
We stopped and watched the Weather Demonstration (well because Daddy is in weather school and all) and the boys liked it. In fact, Aidan was the only one who knew all three ingredients to make a cloud. Do you? Water, Air and......dust. (Pssst. Daddy helped him)
Here's the boys playing in the clouds (courtesy of some liquid nitrogen in water).
Mookie wasn't quite sure about it at first, but then....
Loved it when he saw is brother having fun!
Next it was onto the water play area, this feature here that Aid was playing with was pretty cool.
Gotta have a rain shower in the water play area!
Driving the ambulance again...this time the lights were working!
They had a special exhibit outside called Big Machines with many available for kids to play on/sit in. Here's Aidan in the massive front end loader!
Sure enough, they had a mini-excavator that you could ACTUALLY RUN. After a short wait, our big construction guy was ready to move some dirt!
And the whole bunch got this nice pic outside!
Kinda dreary day on the Columbus riverfront. That's OK, we spent most of the trip inside...so it was perfect!
In the gadgets area, Mommy learned first hand the principles of pulleys, more pulleys easier work. Less pulleys, well, look at her face!
For our Father's Day dinner, we all headed to Montgomery Inn in Dublin. I didn't know that they had put one up there (it's a Cincy staple), but when I did, there was no doubt where our dinner should be! That place is goood!!!
After saying our goodbyes, we headed back to our hotel in Middletown. The boys again swam and we had yet another crash out night...what a long and fun day!
The next morning we decided to go to Entertrainment Junction, a place that bills itself as the world's largest indoor train set. And it is big! And really really good. The scenery is some of the best I've ever seen. They run larger scale engines so detail is a must. Just look at these pictures, this place is amazing!
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To get a gauge on how big this place is, just look at Mookie!
Here's a Civil War diorama....Look at that Bridge, all hand made!
This is unbelievable. Seriously, it must have taken years to build all this.
Here's the downtown in the 1940's, very cool.
So as the story goes, one many hand carved each of the 1400 plus figures for this circus. Click on the picture to see it closer, amazing!
And onto the Modern Age of trains...Nice Boeing Building!
Aid and E rode the Chinese Train. Scary Train, Scarier Tree.
So that's it, another great trip and fun with our boys for sure. This week is Southwest Airlines 40th anniversary so there was again a huge sale (last year we bought both our Minneapolis and Denver trip at this time), so we had to take advantage of the sale. So....the next trip is to????? Boston. Mommy can't wait to show us that awesome city!
Have a great night,
Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan
