Cincinnati

 We drove down to Cincinnati in one day.  Andrew and Bob were leaving for five days to go fishing in Port O'Connor Texas and I was staying with Julia and the kids to help out.  They were very busy fixing up their new house prior to their move on July 30.  Here Elsa is helping Bob play his guitar (he had sent her a CD for Christmas with songs he sang and played).






Henry was comando crawling when we arrived and developed to pretty consistently crawling and was pulling himself up on everything in preparation for cruising.  He is a happy boy, though Elsa grabs everything from him as soon as he decides to play with it.  He loves his mommy and daddy and cries when they leave.  Eventually he got used to me and he actually cried when I left the room.






On Sunday, the day after Andrew and Bob left, we went to Coney Island Amusement Park (developed for younger kids) as a reward to Elsa for having been dragged around to the new house and sitting through meetings.  We met a friend of Elsa's from music class and her parents and rode on the rides and ate a picnic lunch.  Julia was taking care of Henry.  That meant I got to ride on all the rides with Elsa (if she needed an adult).  It's a good thing I like amusement parks.

















This was the scariest ride we went on.  It was a cross between a roller coaster and a swing with centrifigal force.  When we started Elsa just started giggling, though she got a little scared when the operator stopped the machine twice to change what it did.



























Julia thought Elsa would like the bumper cars, and boy did she ever.  She went on them three times and declared they were her favorite.  She was pretty good at driving the car and loved to bump into people.









Julia and I took turns taking care of the kids and painting.  This is their new house.  They were having the floors sanded, stained and coated while we were there and the chimneys redone and putting critter guards on the top.  Julia does all the painting because she has lots of experience and doesn't think most painters do a good job.  She had finished Elsa's room.  I primed and painted shelves in the master bedroom closet, primed and painted the trim in Henry's room (at the ceiling, the floor and a chair rail, along with all around the closets, doors and windows), and primed and painted the same three trims and a fireplace mantle and surround in the master bedroom.  The house had been built in the 1960's and had lots of wallpaper.  It hadn't been updated since.  After Andrew and Bob returned, we continued to take turns painting.  Bob and Andrew fixed the back deck (putting in a new post, sistering up some other posts, straightening the stairs and installing plastic mesh on the railing so kids don't fall through.

This is the view from Henry's room.  Note the stream in the lower left.  The house sits on 1.7 acres, most of which is in trees.

















We celebrated Andrew's birthday when he returned.  Julia baked a cake and I helped Elsa bake blueberry banana muffins.  Here she is presenting them and the card which had pictures of all the ingredients.










It is a tradition with Andrew and Julia that everyone wears birthday hats (in fact we wore them for all meals for two days).

The movers come on July 30 to pack up their house.  They are trying to move some stuff with every trip over.  It is exhausting for them.  I think we helped a little.