december 2011 trip to ohio, maryland, & w. virginia

Here are a selection of shots from our visit to see some of Jason's family last month. We flew into Cincinnati, where Uncle Jim and Aunt Kate live, rented a car and drove out to Maryland and W Virginia, visited mostly Jason's immediate family there (sorry we didn't get to hook up with everybody - maybe this summer!), and then drove back to Cincinnati to fly home.

If you are crying inconsolably to see more of our family trip (and don't pretend you ain't), I posted like 160 pics to facebook, and I can certainly shoot you a link to view them, even if you don't have a facebook account.

at the Krohn Conservatory with Uncle Jim and Aunt Kate

I don't know where Zoralee gets her expressions....

Zoralee's 3rd birthday

A fun little series of geographical factoids about Zoralee is this: she began her existence in Alaska, was born in Montana, had her first birthday back in Alaska, second birthday in Texas, and third birthday in Ohio. 

For Zoralee's birthday, we went to the Cincinnati Zoo. If you're familiar with our attempt 1 and attempt 2 to visit North Dakota zoos and pumpkin patches, you'll know how spectacular the Cincinnati Zoo was - for all of us! And we were literally the ONLY visitors that day, on account of the pouring rain. So the animals were alert and responsive to us. It was great. Just great.

The gorilla keeper told Zoralee to climb beyond the silly fence and get right up to the glass;
he said both humans and gorillas enjoy the interaction, so why not?
The babies showed Zoralee their tricks and brought a box over to play with her.
We were in no hurry to leave - I mean, how cool was this??

Zoralee and Haven (Uncle Cam's niece) at the Cincinnati Museum Center
When our own Jim and Kate turned up sick, Rach set us up with her step-in-laws,
and it wound up being a real highlight to hang out with them!
The Children's Museum at the Cincinnati Museum Center is awesome.

two plaid-shirted, jeaned, tennis shoe'd dads and their little blondie daughters

at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia

 

This set of wings was lying around in a back room at St. Peter's, where we went for a fund-raiser luncheon. It was to be used for a Christmas play that night. Hefty things; I wouldn't trust them on a toddler, especially a tipsy one who has had even a single drop to drink.

my free bird mother-in-law

breakin' the law

We visited the National Zoo in Washington D.C. (which is free!), so we hit two amazing zoos in a week's time. LUCK-Y. 

a close up sighting of our favorite zoo bear

A she-gorilla had a crush on Jason and kept following him around.
That feigned shock, open-jaw "aren't YOU something?!" expression is the same one I used
to woo Jason years ago, so I kept my eye on her.

Jason with his sisters and Mom

a wild night of family dancing

 

a little story about the dancing:

After everybody had shaken their booties for a good long while to pop and rap music, Jason and I winked at each other. It was time to deliver our very clever joke. We said casually to our two twenty-something nieces, "Oh heyyy, maybe you guys would be interested in our music for a change," knowing they would say, "We don't care about your folky music," which they did indeed say. Then Jason pushed the button on his iPhone, and we started jamming to 50 Cent's "Hate It or Love It." Yeeeeahh boy, we were con-nect-a-tect-a-tect-ing with the young folks, that's for sure. They watched us be fools for a minute, and then Ashley said, "Umm, you guys already played this joke on us last time."

Oh. Right. Best of all, we'd used the very same song for our joke two years before, because it's like one of five rap songs we know.

What would it feel like to not be a couple of spaz-oids? I'm afraid we'll never know.
 

two of Jason's high school buddies, Jason and Jesse

Ziah with two of Jesse and Emmy's three kids, Jasper and Brielle