A Very Ohio Birthday

We're celebrating Bobby's birthday a week early because next weekend he has to go on a school field trip. This year we're going to Kirtland, OH and Cedar Point for his birthday, yay! We left after he was done with class/work for the day. Unfortunately we didn't get to our hotel until night (and Bianca HATES driving at night), but we made it and were excited to start our adventure.

(really) Holding her bottle by herself for the first time

The next morning we woke up early to see all of the sites in Kirtland! They were pretty much all in one area at the visitor's center and they took us around to see everything, which was a lot of fun (even though it was a bit drizzly out).

Then we went to the Isaac Morley farm.

And our last stop was the John Johnson Home. The senior missionaries there were so nice. Bianca was in a crawling mood and started crawling all over the place, but they said it was ok for her to crawl under the ropes and such. She didn't touch anything, she just wanted to explore!

Then of course you have to go see the Kirtland Temple, even though the LDS church does not own it. It was pretty neat to see and go through though. Carrying Bianca up all the stairs wasn't too fun, but it was worth it.

Since it was Bobby's birthday, he decided to eat at Chipotle for lunch, yum yum! Then we drove off to Cedar Point. We had passes where we could go into the park that night as well as all day tomorrow, which was awesome. We got to our hotel and got situated and headed off to the amusement park for the night. We got to go on some rides and look around at everything. I got Bobby to go on this one roller coaster that didn't look that bad...but it was dark out so I wasn't 100% certain that it wasn't crazy (his standards anyways). Apparently it had a lot of crazy loops and junk. Oops! I'm sorry baby!!! But yeah,I love when theme parks let you in early the day before if you stay at their hotel. It kinda makes it worth it. Then we just went back to the hotel and slept.

The park didn't open until like 10 or 11 the next morning, so we took our time getting ready for the day, since we knew it'd be a little bit crazy.

We had a lot of fun at the park. Bobby and I took turns going on rides all day (more like me going on a lot of rides since most of the rides there are INSANE...insanely awesome!). The wooden roller coaster was painful though, ugh. Wish I didn't waste my time on that one. The Millennium Force coaster was my fave because it shot you like straight up and down. Crazy! 

We had some extra time, so we played on the beach there for a little bit. Bianca was sad when we had to take her away from the water though (she's a beach bum for sure). 

Daddy bought her a Snoopy (he even picked it out himself for her, aw!) and we got some peppermint patties (haha get it?) to remember our time here by. The rides here were amazing though! Bianca was even able to go on one, The Merry-Go-Round!!

(my fave!)

(See how insane it was??)

That night we drove to a Mexican place to eat that wasn't very good. Then we relaxed and got some ZZzzzs.

The next day we were going home, but I had a super secret surprise in store for Bobby!!! I told him it was in Cleveland, so he just assumed it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which we do want to go to someday, but today was not the day. Instead I took him to...

Bianca knows the secret...

THE "A CHRISTMAS STORY" HOUSE!!! It's the house they used to shoot the movie "A Christmas Story" in, plus it had a bunch of the original props and everything in there...THAT YOU COULD PLAY WITH!!! YES! I totally recommend it to anyone traveling in Cleveland. It's in a pretty dumpy area, but it's soooo worth it! Bobby was so surprised and excited! Bianca had fun too because she could crawl all over and not get in trouble. The tour guide tells you stories and then lets you roam the house freely taking as many pictures as you want. So. Cool!

They had a museum next door that we went to that had some more artifacts from the movie. It was all really neat and I'm so happy I randomly came across this place when researching things to do in Ohio. 

HAPPY 28TH BIRTHDAY BABY! I HOPE WE GAVE YOU AN AWESOME BIRTHDAY BECAUSE YOU DESERVE IT! <3 font="font">

Houston, we have a tooth!

Just marking this day down in little Bianca's history: first tooth made it's appearance (finally) today! Hooray! She started to pick something off the floor and put it in her mouth, and I discovered said tooth when fishing out the foreign object. Silly girl! We love her though, soooo much <3

Dear Maplewood: I hate your stinking guts!

We made pretty good time driving back to NY. We got to Maplewood, got our keys and went into our apartment. We noticed it was a bit stuffy, but we figured it was just because we hadn't been there in 2.5 months. So what do you do? Put the air conditioning on, duh! Well. We tried that. It. Wasn't. Working. And yes, NY is a northern state, but it gets pretty darn hot there too. And it was hot. We were SOOO angry! Bianca hates hot weather too, so she can't sleep very well if it's hot out. Awesome. Of course they cannot fix it that night and of course the computer is still packed in the car. 

That night we drove around Ithaca and tried to find a hotel to stay in because that was just ridiculous, but since it was right before the start of school of course there were no vacancies anywhere. Needless to say, it was a horribly hot night. We unpacked the next day and we just ate whatever we didn't have to cook on the stove to cause MORE heat in the apartment. We got a little fan for little Bianca, but it didn't help THAT much.

To get maintenance to come, you have to put in an internet request. They don't have a phone number (that's what you get at grad student housing I guess), so we just sent in a request for the same thing every day. Granted, in Ithaca you get your occasional cooler day where it wasn't TOO horrible and Bianca could actually wear clothes, but I mean, COME ON! We even said we had a little baby who was sweating in here. We spent a few nights in stupid hotels in Cortland over the next like 2 weeks. Bobby would do homework in the computers there and Bianca and I would just watch movies and play. UGH! What a waste of money we didn't have though. :-/


They eventually came to fix it. They put in a new unit. But it didn't work very well. At least a little bit of cool air came out though. Then a week later they came and put ANOTHER unit in and this time, it worked! The workers there weren't nice, but the ac specialist guy was the best! He was so nice and understanding when they finally sent him over and he got our stuff fixed asap! So thanks to him! Boo to the rest of them.

Let's talk about good things now shall we? I got Bianca her first real pair of shoes, aw! And we've been having fun at branch activities and playgroups (now that Bianca can kinda play). Bobby's schedule is CRAZY! He even got an on-campus job like 10 hrs a week, which is good, even though we hardly see him, even if he's home. But all is (finally) well here. I can't WAIT to get out of Maplewood though, yuck yuck yuck. Ok enough complaining, look at pictures of our cute baby now :)

:::::EDITED TO ADD ONE YEAR LATER:::::

oh yeah, it didn't stop there with the AC. The heater wasn't working when it finally got cold enough to turn it on. But yet they came right over for that one, even though it was like barely in the 50's or something crazy out. We weren't freezing. We were fine. But we let them know early because we know how these people are. But apparently to them a broken heater in 50 degree weather is an "immediate emergency"  but a broken AC in the 90's is nothing. *smacks head* Poor people who live in C19 after us...I swear it's cursed...