Trip to Ohio: Summer 2010

Off the topic, but does anyone else find blogging to be extremely therapeutic? I sure do.
Anyways, I FINALLY have the Ohio pictures ready. I know some of you have been waiting for them for awhile. We had such a great time! We sure kept busy! It was funny the night before we were leaving Casey was at our friend’s, Kelly and Jeanne's, house for a meeting. Turned out they were leaving for Ohio at basically the same time we were! It worked out awesomely because the three of us (Casey, Stella, and I) were going to be smashed in Casey’s truck…with my sister’s wedding dress might I add. The trip went really well thanks to our friends. It was such a blessing. For most of the time Stella and I rode in the van with Jeanne & the kids, while Casey and Kelly went in the truck. Oh, and they fed us, too!

We parted ways when we were about 45 minutes away from our final stop which was with Casey’s side of the family. Stella was so happy to see her Grammie and PawPaw (Casey’s parents.) She’s so comfortable with them. While we were there we went to the spray park, which Stell thought was the coolest thing! We went there with our long time friends, Mike, Brooke, and their kids. Stella was also able to spend time with her cousins while we were there. The first Saturday we were there we went down to Dayton for my cousin, Anna’s, wedding. It was beautiful! It was so cute to see Stella dancing. We all had fun. Stella has all little girl cousins that she played with! On Casey’s side there are three little girls cousins, and on my side there are about eight little girl cousins. They were so cute playing together! Stella never met any of those eight little girl cousins before, but they just automatically played so well. It’s like they sensed that they were family. It was really quite touching. Stella fell asleep before we left to go back to the hotel room. My brother’s girlfriend, Nancy, got her to sleep right on the dance floor! She has the magic touch. Casey had to leave that night to get back home, so the rest of the vacation was just Stella and me. The next day we enjoyed time with family, and then we were back off to Ashland (Casey’s hometown.) We hung out with his family, and then Monday we went to Casey’s sister’s house. We spent two days there. Stella really loved playing with Allison, and with Stacy’s girls. We had s'mores, the girls swam, and we went to the zoo.

For the second week of the trip, we stayed with my parents. Stella really loves her Baba and Papou, too. She’s very blessed to have four loving and caring grandparents. That Saturday was my sister’s bridal shower. It was beautiful, and it was fun. For the rest of the week we just enjoyed time with family. Stella loved playing outside just like the free spirit that she is! We went to the park that we always used to go to when I was growing up, so it was cool to see Stella play there, too. On our way out of town we went to Pittsburgh to my sister’s house. It’s a beautiful city (even though the Steelers’ are from there! Haha) Stella loved Kathryn’s house. She played foosball, she played Mike’s drums, and she did all sorts of fun stuff. We left on Thursday to go home. Mom, Stella, and I got a little lost on the way home, but we finally made it back to South Carolina. Thanks everyone for the hospitality! We appreciate everything everyone did for us. It was a blast!

(Below is a video of Stella in my parent’s whirlpool.)