Family Picture

Here's our attempt at a family picture in Richmond

Wedding Weekend, Richmond, VA

Last weekend we went to my cousins wedding in Richmond.  It's an 8.5 hour drive, pretty long with two kids, but doable and much cheaper than four plane tickets.  My cousin arranged a great babysitter for Friday and Saturday night so we were able to relax and have a good time at the rehearsal dinner and reception.  Jake even slept in for us (7:30 both mornings!)  The Starbucks downstairs in the hotel was pretty nice too.

Grace got to swim in the hotel pool and Jake got to jump on the beds.  We also took them both to a really fun playground.  On the second day Jake happily declared "this is our new house."

The kids did really good with the babysitter.  They got to visit cousin Zachary down the hall, walk around the hotel, watch movies and eat junk food.

Overall a pretty good weekend.  The weather was great and we got to see lots of family.  The drive home was long, but there was only screaming for the last 45 minutes.

About two weeks ago we went to Mapleside Farms (about two miles from our house) to do some fun fall activities.  We thought we would be getting pumpkins, like the farms we went to in Seattle, but I guess they don't have pumpkin patches in Ohio?  We did go on a hayride, cow train, super slide and walk through a corn maze.  We ended up just buying our pumpkins from the grocery store.

Walking to School

So far fall in Cleveland has been a mix of cool raining grey days and beautiful sunny days.  I am trying to walk to school as much as possible because I know winter will be here soon.  I am not looking forward to the winter!

It's a 1/4 mile to school, a five minute walk for someone without children, a 15 to 20 minute walk with children.  There are driveways to run up and down, cats to play with, bumps in the sidewalk that Jake has to go over at least twice, airplanes to stop and watch, and lots of leaves to play in.  It's a fun walk as long as you leave early enough.

Beautiful Cleveland!

Cleveland definitely does not compare to Seattle in terms of scenery, but it has it's moments.

This is a field behind a playground in a connecting neighborhood (technically we are not supposed to use this playground because we don't let them use our pool, but whatever)

This is the main road through our subdivision

We've had some amazing sunsets lately