A few days away

As our children grow older, it's gotten a bit more challenging for the stunningly patient SML and I to find a time when the five of us can get away, even for a couple of days. Knowing that this is probably the last summer where we will all be together for awhile, as Our Lady of BYU will probably spend more time at school next spring/summer, we drew a line in the sand and blocked off a couple of days. Those days came up this past week.

We loaded up the family cruiser on Thursday and started driving. We drove past O'Hare without stopping, much to my chagrin. We had about 400 miles of road ahead of us - the Cleveland, Ohio, area as our final destination, and I was already wishing we'd flown. Fortunately, the drive is pretty much a straight shot from Chicagoland to the Paris of the Midwest, or as it is better known, the Mistake by the Lake. Some insights from the drive - northern Indiana is one huge cornfield and the rest stops in northern Ohio are pretty fancy pants.

We stayed a couple of days in Mentor, OH. Some wonderful friends own a charming, small hotel, the Lawnfield Inn, there and that's where we nested. The hotel was perfectly situated for what we were doing in Mentor. Mentor is next door to Kirtland, OH, and we were visiting several sights of historical importance to our Church. We spent Friday touring historic Kirtland and the surrounding areas. It was a cool and humbling experience to walk in the footsteps of those who literally gave all in order to see the Church established. We had a good time as a family. We capped the evening with dinner with friends at their home in Kirtland. So good to see Jess and A.D. - it was a fantastic summer's night, so we ate outside, pizzas from the grill. Awesome! We are so blessed to have good friends, all over the world.

Saturday we made our way to Cedar Point, northern Ohio's amusement park and thrill ride capital. Several things conspired against us here - nonstop rain, a distinct lack of exposed tattoos in our family, and no exposed muffin tops.
I only had the stomach to show a drawn rendition of the horror that was the crowd there. This image, from a t-shirt, doesn't do what was on display yesterday justice and photos would only serve to harm you, trust me. Why? Because most of the horror on display was accompanied by ill-fitting short shorts. Do these people not have mirrors? Or was there just a big fire sale on fun house mirrors down at the local Big Lots? It really was appalling. And then there was the cavalcade of tats. Each one increasingly worse than the next. Wow.

And I'd like to point out that this visual assault started at the parking lot and never let up. Just like the rain. It was raining the entire time, which was a drag because it shut down almost all the roller coasters. We rode two - Raptor and Blue Streak. The lines were wicked long as they were the only ones working and once we realized there was not going to be a let up in the rain, we headed home. Fairly painless drive home. It was good to be together. And now it's Sunday and I've been up since 430AM. Nice.