Off to Ohio, on the road south- Thursday, June 30, 2011

Julie said she doesn't really feel like she's on vacation until we're on the road, and leaving the house. We can be on summer break, but we're not truly on vacation until we're leaving for somewhere.

This morning, Anna and Emma’s report cards arrived in the mail. We were so proud of both of them that we said, “We’re going to Disney World!” and got in the car for our three week trip.

We probably would have started this trip even earlier, but we had several things to take care of this week. We spent yesterday saying good-bye to grandparents. We had lunch with Grandpa and Grandma Frank at George’s, and had dinner with Grandpa and Grandma Wright at Anderson’s. In between, we did some last minute errands and shopping for the trip. The last thing to do was this morning-- Scott had a class to take about autism in the classroom. That was done at 1:00, so we had the car ready to go, grabbed drive-through Mighty Taco, and hit the road.

Our first real stop was in North Olmsted, Ohio, to visit with Scott’s Aunt Joyce and Uncle Gene. That’s always fun for Scott because he and his brother used to go up there a lot when they were Anna and Emma’s age, and it’s a real trip back for him to see their house again. Aunt Joyce hasn’t been doing very well because her back has been bothering her a great deal, but she and Uncle Gene seemed happy to see our family again. They very graciously treated us to a dinner and pie at Baker’s Square. When then bill came, Uncle Gene grabbed it and didn't let go of it, so Julie couldn't sneak off and pay it like she did at breakfast before.

After about two hours with Aunt Joyce and Uncle Gene, we continued on to our first hotel in Columbus. The girls watched the fireflies along the road as we were driving. It seemed like there were "10,000 fireflies" like in the song.

Julie is experimenting with her father’s GPS. The girls have named it “Lizzie,” and Emma is already getting annoyed with hearing it give us directions. None of us were very happy with Lizzie when she couldn't get us to the hotel in Columbus, but we're here now.