Stop # 10- Monroeville, Ohio

Our first full day in Ohio was fun filled day. Aunt Donna and I started our our day by going to the Amish market. I had so much fun walking up and down each aisle and looking at everything that they had. I loved the spices and baking supplies the most, I am sure that shocks everyone! They truly had every colored sugar you could imagine as well as sprinkles. I couldn't resist the dinosaur sprinkles or the many different colors of sugar! Let the baking begin :) We then went to a fabric shop that had so many wonderful ideas to try. I have a few different style of bibs for Amelia that I am looking forward to trying out.
When we arrived back home we were off to a privately owned swimming area. The swimming area must have been longer than a football field and full of rope swings, slides & diving boards. We went with Mimi's Family and met up with Jason & Kim (all my second cousins). Our family kept the lifeguards on their toes! Lil Adam jumped off the high dive and was so scared from the fall that he started crying and hid under the water. The lifeguard jumped in after him only to find out he was just shaken up. Addison was dramatic as usual and kept calling out for help and Alex (just being himself) was going off the high dive and scaring everyone that didn't know him!! Hopefully we didn't tarnish the Lund/Ott reputation to badly :)
We ended the day having a wonderful dinner with Uncle Tom & Aunt Sue. Alex ran outside as soon as dinner was over so that he could watch Paul spray the bean fields. He walked along the edge of Aunt Donna's and Uncle Butch's yard just watching the tractor go up and down the fields, so cute. After dinner Kelly and her family along with Jason and Kim came over. We enjoyed the great company and Aunt Donna enjoyed teaching my little ones how to drive the golf cart!! Each of the kids loved being driven around by their cousins, but when Aunt Donna wanted to teach them they lite right up. The kids ended the day catching fireflies and keeping them in their rooms that night :) What a perfect day!

Lake Erie is the home to many islands. Aunt Donna and Mimi thought that Kelly's Island was the right choice for our families visit and we must agree. We began our day with a ferry ride on Lake Erie over to Kelly's Island. Once we were off the ferry golf carts would be our source of transportation on the island. We had a wonderful lunch on the water and then drove across the island to the Glacier Grooves. What an amazing thing to see, the Great Lakes were formed from glaciers and the rocks still show the different water levels set by grooves in the rocks. There was a park ranger that was able to talk to Lil Adam and show him fossils that were older than dinosaurs. She was even nice enough to let him take some home with him. Of course that put him on cloud nine! Ice Cream and Silly Bandz would be next on the agenda...it was so fun to see Mimi's kids so into the Silly Bandz. They had a great time going through all of the shapes and trying to teach Addison how to trade. She would always trade and then want hers back!!
We headed off the island and went to the Marblehead Lighthouse. We all headed up 79 very tightly wound stairs to reach the lookout. The view was amazing, after we was the lighthouse we headed back home for the evening.

Amelia Ott is the sweet cousin that sent our Amelia her pretty outfit when she was born. I blogged about how thoughtful I thought she was for thinking of my little one. I couldn't go to Ohio without having pictures of both Amelia's taken while our Amelia wore her outfit sent to her from Amelia. We couldn't work a smile out of our Amelia, but lucky for us her cousin's smile was wonderful.
Addison had such a wonderful time with Amelia during our visit. She wanted her picture taken with her as well. Oh how I wish we lived closer to cousins, I love seeing how close all of the Lund/Ott/Smith cousins are and I hope that my kids can have those tight relationships with their cousins during this lifetime.
Thanks for all of the extra efforts to have us visit. We know that lots of extra errands and plans had to be put into place and I am so grateful. I truly enjoyed our visit :)