Ohio & the Olympics

Can you squeeze a trip to Ohio in a couple of days with 3 kids and hours of flying and still have a good time? The answer appears to be yes. We woke up very early AZ time on Wednesday and headed to the airport for our quick trip to Cleveland. Tevia and Jarek were nervous that we would not make the flight, but we did - and so did our luggage, even though the First Class line was longer and less friendly than the regular line. That teaches me to try and take advantage of my Gold status.

The plane rides (via North Carolina) went without incident and the boys were great. Upon arrival in Cleveland we were wondering if family would be waiting for us. The answer was no, but that was okay. The clan had moved on to find a place to eat. We went to our rental car place and got a nice Chrysler Aspen which was fun to drive. We then headed off to Cedar Point while we listened to the rest of the clan fight and try and decide where to eat dinner. Apparently they couldn't find any place good. On our drive in I found several places that looked great, but in the end they chose a place called "East of Chicago" which is a pizza buffet place. It was great to see the family - even though honestly I'd have rather eaten McDonald's (yes, I was no big fan of East of Chicago).

We got our hotel rooms after that and felt the great feeling of seeing Cedar Point. It brought back so many memories. I love amusement parks and Cedar Point by far surpasses any other in terms of rides and thrills. After some chatting with fam we hit the sacks and awoke the next day ready for our day at the park.

We planned the day similar to my last trip out by heading to the Millennium Force first. We ran from the 'starting line' and Tevia was so proud that she could almost run the entire way. I was proud of her, too. Our running was a little thrown off by the fact that they wouldn't let Tevia on the ride with her backpack, so she had to go back and get a locker - but that didn't put us too far behind schedule. We then headed off to the Top Thrill Dragster, which is my favorite ride. We ended up waiting a little longer than usual for this as it wasn't working at 10AM when it opened. We stayed in line however and got our reward a little bit later. A funny story about our wait in line was that there was a guy fixing something on the track. After he got down we were all excited to see if it was now going to be fixed. Then all of the sudden some kid walks to where we are standing and flips some switch on a pole right next to us. I joke to the guy and say if I had known I just had to flip that switch I would have done it earlier. Then the ride worked! It was so funny. We eventually did find out it was not the 'on' switch for the ride (which is a good thing) but rather the switch for the camera.

Tevia and I then gathered our children and we did some rides with them. We ate lunch at Johnny Rockets and in the afternoon we found a fun place where the kids prospected some dirt and found arrowheads and gems. We took Jarek on his first 'big' rollercoaster which was the Iron Dragon. He was fairly nervous and was in the car with me. This is a suspended coaster that is fairly tame. There is a second hill to climb in part of the ride and to make it more scary I told Jarek that this was a huge hill and very scary. He got nervous and all of the sudden the coaster stopped. We got stuck! Jacob Wall then added to Jarek's state by wondering out loud if the coaster behind us was going to hit us. We eventually got unstuck, but Jarek was quite nervous and this ended his coaster riding for a few hours. But eventually we got him on the Gemini - and in the end that was his favorite ride.

The evening I spent with the two older boys. Tevia took Enok back to the hotel. We had fun on some of the kiddie rides and then headed back. That night Jacob, Cari, Tom and I played Thurns and Taxis in the lobby where I barely scored a few points. The poor start has not placed it on my list of game favorites. The next day we headed to Cleveland to eat lunch with my grandfather and the Uchman's. We then had a dinner afternoon at a park with my grandmother and the Uchman's. That was a lot of fun and Kathy Uchman did a great program where she gave each person a gift and made many of us laugh and cry. That night we stayed up late watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and then we left early Saturday to head back to PHX.

It was a fun, quick trip. But it reinforced the love I have for my family and confirmed that any sacrifice is worth being with them. This may be the last I see Kathy, my sis, for quite a while, so it was definitely worth that.

The trip home was great and we pretty much lazed around the weekend glued to the TV. I LOVE the Olympics and enjoy watching them. The first few days have been great - with the best being last night when the US men's swim team won the 4X100 freestyle against France. That may have been the best race I have ever watched. I screamed and jumped when they won. So my weekend was full of excitement and eyes of tears and pride.

Sunday was Jarek's birthday. I will post more on that another day. I am so thrilled to have had him in my life for 9 years now.