Ohio, Part I

We got back Tuesday evening from a wonderful week in Ohio! The first few days were busy while last-minute details were taken care of in anticipation of the wedding of Ben's brother, Jeremy. Both Gabriel and Ben were in the wedding (Ben as a groomsman, Gabriel as a ringbearer), and they looked so handsome in their suits! (If I ran the world, they'd wear suits every day...That's how cute they were.) Anyhoo, after Gabriel performed his ringbearing duties (which didn't actually involve any rings since he decided prior to the wedding that he would not be removed from his father's side), I was on Gabriel patrol. Thus, no pictures from our side. The in-laws took oodles of them, though, so I'll post some when we get the copies. And as a final note concerning the wedding: Welcome to the family, Candace!!!

The day after, the bride and groom headed off to Tennessee (or Tenner-see, as Ben calls it) for their honeymoon. The rest of us got together with Ben's awesome Uncle Donnie and Aunt Linda, Donnie's sweet-as-apple-pie mom, and wonderful Grandma Lou for an outing to Young's Dairy. It's sort of an iconic place to visit in Ohio; other than the obvious attraction (cows), they have a cool little barn where you can pet baby goats and cows. Don't let the pictures fool you... Gabriel spent most of his time in this barn trying to open the cages and free the babies. Future activist, perhaps? He also rode in a barrel-car caravan, which he seemed to enjoy thoroughly until the caravan leader drove them around a corner and out of the comforting sight of parents. When the caravan returned, he had the saddest, most deserted face I've ever seen. I felt like the worst parent of the year. We rebounded from that with some yummy ice cream (Ben got a sundae called The Monster... I can't believe his heart's still beating after ingesting it.)

Lastly, Ben got to go to a Dayton Dragons game (they're the local semi-pro baseball team). It was at night, in rain, and cold (!), so me and the bambinos stayed back. Ben had a great time with his aunt, uncle, and grandma, and brought back some sweet t-shirts for us homebodies :)