Florida ... 1st airplane trip since China!

This week we took a quick trip to Florida with my parents.  This picture is of A coloring in the kitchen while we were packing up to go to the airport.

 Our first carry on only trip for our little family.  And this included 2 computers, workout clothes and all of A's stuff.

 At the airport.

 1st flight to Atlanta.

 Thankfully Audrey can and will sleep on a plane.

 She also napped at the condo!  Yeah possibly she is becoming a real traveler as this was a main hurdle!

1st time at the beach.

 She was not thrilled with the sand but it was pretty cold and windy the whole time we were in Venice.  We did not even attempt the pool.

 And at one of the nearby playgrounds.

 Audrey can spot a slide from a good distance.  Still not interested in swings but pretty much everything else is good.

 Evening on the beach with Baba.  She still was not interested in getting her feet wet.

But the bonding with her grandparents was priceless.  Audrey would regularly go "eye to eye" with Granddad to share her blanket.

 And Mom-mom (or mom-mop as A called my mom) would share ice cream after dinner.  Although share is used loosely as Audrey would eat most of the ice cream.

Happy girl on the flight home.

Who slept on my arm almost the whole way.

Dinner at home and back to our routine. 

Douthat State Park, Family Reunion in VA, Lewisburg W VA visit with Aunt Nancy, HallZooween not, Cincinnati Walks and Luizhou Friendship Froce Sister City dinner

This post covers several trips and events from September thru mid October. 

Douthat State Park and the Allegheny Mountains.

Our cabin at Douthat

Then another trip to Virginia in October for family reunion at John's Uncle Frank and Aunt Sandra's farm.  Here Miss A is watching family fishing.  This is also a good example of how the quality of pictures has declined since she started walking.

 With Uncle Frank and Aunt Sandra.

A picture of the 2nd generation cousins.... Sammy, Ashley, Will, Audrey on Baba's knee and Andrew.

Crashing in the car ... sometimes funny and then

sometimes like an angel.

Shopping in Lewisburg with Aunt Nancy.  Unfortunately I did not take many pictures at the wonderful lunch we had outside at a new restaurant.  The weather was wonderful and we had  lot of fun.

Playing at our neighborhood playground.

The wonderful pictures I take so often these days.

This past Friday John, Audrey and I went to the Zoo because I mistakenly thought Hallzooween included Fridays too.  I was hoping Miss A would want to try her costume if she saw other kids wearing them.  No one was wearing any costumes and all we saw was set up.

 So I just carried her costume.

Yep that is how Miss A was dressed for this visit.

Checking out the plush in the gift shop.

 This past Saturday we participated, along with 8,000 other people, in Cincinnati Walks at Coney Island.  This is a 3 mile walk fundraiser for Children's Hospital.

This International Adoption Center Team.

 That afternoon the 3 of us took another walk around our neighborhood.

Sunday we were ready for church early so we decided to walk up to Bow Tie for a cup of coffee for us and so A could draw and play on their piano. 

 Sunday evening we attended a Friendship Force dinner welcoming guest from Luizhou China.  This dinner was held a Methodist church on the west side of town. We were early and thankfully this church had an entertaining pumpkin patch.

Not a great picture of us but it seems I never have many of the 2 of us.

This pictures shows why Miss A may get a camera of her own for Christmas.

Another not great picture from the Luizhou FF dinner but I did not take many.

Who takes a 20 month old to a Japanese steakhouse?

The answer to the title question of this blog entry is John and myself.  It turned out to be very fun but  there were a couple of times we thought we might have made a serious mistake.

Some background ... after we got home from a 6 hour drive from Lewisburg to Cincinnati we went to Cincinnati Bell.  The rice trick to dry out my apple juice laden previous phone did not work.  Well this little trip took an hour of which Miss A spent the entire time running through the store pretend talking on their phones to "ga-ma, cousins, aunt, uncle and Paula".  Because we had little food at home and little time before A's bedtime we decided to try the Japanese restaurant in the strip mall where Cincincinnati Bell is located.  Yep we were seated at a hibachi communal table.  Audrey is almost always a good restaurant guest so we weren't overly concerned about her behavior.  But all the same it seemed a little adult, but at least it wasn't a weekend evening.  Audrey was sitting front and center of the grill, when the chef catching oil on the fire began the meal.  Well I was just getting my new phone out to capture her first time at a hibachi dinner when we saw sheer terror and panic to get out of the highchair.  So I immediately got her out ad held her at a distance until the food was cooked.Safety girl did not like the idea of an open flame during dinner.

However, if the "fight or flight"mechanism was triggered, the only fighting Audrey did was with the straps on her high chair.  Apparently, adrenaline makes a girl hungry.

After tasting the noodles Miss  started sucking them up as fast as she could feed them into her little mouth.  She looked like she was auditioning for the lead role in Lady and the Tramp.  Although we ordered the children's sirloin for her meal she only wanted to eat the shrimp (mine) and salmon(John's), which she verbally asked for as well as signed.

All these pictures were downloaded from my new phone.