Sleepover

It's been quite a few years since Debbie, Gwen, and I were able to get together, and now that we're all living in the same state, we decided it was time. Debbie invited us for a sleepover at her place! Gwen has stayed over there in past years, but I've never actually slept there myself, so this was an adventure. The Anoka County Fair was finishing up on it's last day, and traffic was pretty slow for awhile along that road. (Bruce followed me in his car, on a mission to replace a battery in Bil's old car.) When I drove up to Debbie's, the flowers along the front of her house were spectacular! Her two dogs, Odie and Gunner, were tucked away somewhere upstairs when I walked in, but they were allowed to join us at times, if they were behaving themselves ...they were pretty good ...

We had happy hour with Arnold Palmer Mimosas and Sangria, with plenty of chips and dips and veggies and fruit, and then a supper of chicken fingers from Pizza Ranch with potato salad. What am I forgetting? I brought an egg bake for breakfast the next day, and Debbie put cinnamon rolls in the oven.

We all remembered to wear our bling rings! But, we never got around to taking a selfie of us wearing them. Maybe next time.

11 pm seemed like the right time to go to bed. I suppose in the past we might have stayed up much later, but that's getting harder to do these days. Although there's always lots to discuss and never enough time to cover it all. We'll do this again, for sure.

Last Road Trip To Maryland

Well, I think maybe we've made our last road trip to Maryland for a while. Katie and her little family are moving back to Minnesota very soon! This is big news! But, more on that later. We left for our trip on the 4th of July, and decided that this time we would take two days to travel there, and two days to travel back, stopping to stay somewhere in Ohio each way. We thought that would be a more restful way to go, and maybe it was, but it sure seemed like we were driving forever. So, I didn't pack as much food this time, but we did have a huge bag of snack mix (with honey roasted peanuts and m&m's included, yum) which was a comfort to munch on when the roads got stressful, for example, the Chicago area. And we saw so many accidents along the way. Somewhere close to Jellystone Park in Wisconsin on E-94, we ended up sitting for an hour, waiting for the highway to reopen. Two ambulances and a fire truck squeezed in between the stopped cars, and then a helicopter came and went. Several people took their dogs out for walks while we all waited, mostly German Shepherds, it seemed. We ate our bagel sandwiches (Everything Bagel, munster cheese, black forest ham, and strawberry cream cheese) with red grapes, and were satisfied.

We stopped for the night at the Hampton Inn in Freemont, Ohio. We've stayed there before, but that was before the pandemic happened, and I hoped that this time, things might still be as comfortable as they were before. It wasn't terrible, but I have to say, things don't seem to be quite back to normal yet. We stopped at Applebees for a late supper, and had a glass of wine with a perfectly cooked medium rare steak, and it tasted wonderful. Our bed was comfortable, and they did have a complimentary breakfast, just no hot items like they usually do. I suppose that was healthier.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike

Interesting...

I love looking at wind turbines

We listened to Harry Potter Goblet of Fire on audiobook, were actually able to see how beautiful the state of Pennsylvania is since we were driving during the day, and arrived at Katie and Avi's around 4pm.

Avi grilled chicken for us in the evening, and he had a friend from work join us. Little boy went to bed, of course, and it seems that now Christopher is his new favorite stuffed animal. Katie says that sometimes when Aaron wakes during the night, he'll hold on to Christopher's nose and then go back to sleep ... little boy ... It was hot and steamy while we were there, and we had to work around that when we wanted to go to the park or for walks in the stroller. We did go for rides in the car (picked up donuts one time), and of course, Wegeman's for groceries. Katie made granola, and we had Pho for lunch one day. I made a list of all the birds that came to the feeder on their upper deck, and counted 15 different types! And, I was finally able to identify the mystery bird call I hear whenever we're there ... the Carolina Wren. New words that Aaron is trying out include: tortilla, oh boy, adorable, and raisin. We watched Great British Baking Show on Netflix before bed. Also, the landlord had some people stop by to look at the place, and they happened to be granparents checking it out for their daughter and husband and two little ones. They could see how it was all set up for toddlers, and later ended up signing a lease! Little boy got a bump on his head, he was okay, but that was kind of hard on grandma to see.

And then before you knew it, we were back on the road again! On the edge of Ohio and Indiana, we stayed the night at the Holiday Inn. The hotel was right off the turnpike, and sat in the middle of a cornfield. We drove around to see what the little town close by was like, and passed an untidy cemetary (wished I had taken a photo of that one), a Moose Lodge, and heard trains in the distance. It was great! Then we ate supper at the little family restaurant across the highway from the hotel. There was hot breakfast the next morning, too. If we were to keep taking road trips to Maryland, this would be a good place to remember. And, it was actually about $100 less a night, which made it even nicer than the Hampton Inn.

Yesterday as I was driving home from my visit with Debbie and Gwen, I saw that Bruce had hung up the blue swing in the front yard again, which did my heart good.