Ohio

One Saturday while we were in Ohio, almost all of Gayle’s family were together. One niece is in Africa, and a couple of other people were missing for one reason or another, but we had a good time just being together all day. In the afternoon, I let a niece use my camera, and she got some interesting pictures. I kept a number of the 100+ pictures, and then took some more in the evening myself.

This is the setup for cooking chicken for supper. They built a fire in that tire rim, and the food was put on the “table”.

Mr. Inventor with a kite.

Grandma’s flowers.

Gayle spent a lot of time that week trimming this hedge behind the house.

Apparently this sign was something Gayle helped make in Young Folks—he can’t remember what it was for. The children had fun with it.

Our old van. When we moved from Michigan to New Zealand, we drove this van to the Cincinnati airport, and Gayle’s parents drove it back to their place. At this point, it is undriveable. The back bumper actually rusted so much it fell off!

Gayle’s parents house.

Getting ready for supper.

Little Miss with a cousin.

The pinata that was the highlight of the evening for the children.

Going after the goodies! I was glad that, besides candy, there were also little toys.

We enjoyed several family reunions while we were in Ohio. The one with my husband’s father’s extended family was held at a state park near Dayton. The children had a lot of fun playing around the pond. Grandpa brought a few fishing rods, but only two fish were caught.

I enjoyed seeing the plants around the trails. This was teasel, just about to bloom.

Mr. Inventor climbed around in the trees, getting bobbers and lures that had been lost by other fishermen.

What he didn’t realize was that there was poison ivy on the trees! He spent the next week, until the day we left, quite miserable with poison ivy all over his arms and legs. I treated him with oatmeal a few times, and we also tried many other remedies. We were very thankful that it dried up the day before we left for home; we were worried that if the Immigration officials saw it when we arrived in New Zealand that he would be turned back. We thought about getting a doctor’s statement as to what it was, but thankfully, because it dried up, he was able to wear a long-sleeved shirt and hide it.

The shelter house at the park, where we had the reunion. It was good to see many cousins, aunts and uncles again!

The pond, which will always be remembered by our family as the the place where Mr. Inventor got poison ivy! It was really beautiful.

We’ve been home for three weeks already, but I’m having trouble finding time to work on my blog. I’ve had a lot of paperwork to do, for one thing and another, and spent a couple of days in hospital last week with a miscarriage. Now that the paperwork and figuring is nearly done, maybe I can catch up the blog!

Grandpa and Grandma had a wading pool for the little ones. Mr. Imagination and Little Miss played in it a lot on hot days—of which there were quite a few while we were there!

This was a very enjoyable evening at my brother-in-law’s house. There were four large families together, with a total of around 50 people!

Little Miss seemed to love this cousin the most of the three big girls in this family. I wondered if that was because she gave her rides on the horses?

One of our young nephews borrowed my camera one afternoon while we were there. I deleted most of his pictures, but liked this one of their kitten.

My husband’s sister organized a canoe/kayak trip down a local creek (we would have called it a river in Michigan!). It went much more smoothly than the one in Michigan! No one was in danger this time. Little Miss and I stayed home to take naps, but everyone else went. I went along to help pick them up at the end, and Mr. Inventor gave Little Miss a quick ride in the kayak.

A lot of the canoeists weren’t really ready to be done at the end; it was a hot day and the water felt good! This was the aunt who organized the trip, heading downstream with a bunch of little boys after her.

One afternoon I woke up from a nap to find that a storm had just blown in. I went downstairs and looked out the kitchen window just in time to see this branch fall, just outside the house! The wind was blowing a gale (we heard estimates of 80 miles per hour). I decided to postpone the trip to town to get online at the library!

I remembered that the van was parked under a tree, so I ran outside to move it out of harm’s way. While doing that, I saw this branch down in the front yard, and the tree across the road half down. After the storm was over, I heard what happened to my boys. Gayle and the boys were around the corner, helping build a fence for my sister-in-law. Mr. Inventor was standing under a tree to close a gate after his cousin drove through when the storm began. His aunt called him to come over to the garage. He did. His cousin drove through the gate, and two-thirds of the tree fell down—right where Mr. Inventor had been standing a minute before! We were very thankful to still have him.

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Sweetie were so happy to catch some wild kittens one morning! They played with them for a few minutes, but never caught them again.

Gayle wanted to take our children to a historical park he remembered touring many years ago. We calculated that we were last there 20 years ago, nearly to the day—just after we were engaged! The place has changed a lot since then; they’ve built a huge new entrance building and added a lot of other buildings and exhibits. We spent several hours walking around it and learning about the history of Dayton, Ohio. Little Miss’s favorite thing was the dog stranded on the roof of a house in the building which told the story of the great flood of Dayton in 1913. She thought the dog was real, and wanted to watch it dry off; it looked like it was dripping wet. Mr. Inventor enjoyed the grist mill. I didn’t end up taking any pictures of the exhibits—pictures like that bore me, and I didn’t want to clutter my computer with them!

The name of this road has always amused me. What is a chicken bristle, anyway? We couldn’t figure that one out.

This bell tower is where the park got its name. The owner of the National Cash Register company built it for his wife.

The joys of being a mom—you get asked to pull things out of people’s eyes.

Mr. Imagination

Mr. Sweetie at the Shaker house.

My girls!

Before we got halfway through the village, Little Miss was getting very tired, so when she saw this chair in a pioneer house she made herself at home.

A robin up in a tree at the park.

After our time in Michigan, we drove to Holmes County, Ohio, to visit some old friends there. We spent two nights with them, and they took us touring and shopping the last day, before we headed to western Ohio to be with Gayle’s family.

We saw a few wheat fields with shocks of wheat.

Big houses and barns are pretty much the norm in this area.

Horses are everywhere, too; Holmes County is the largest Amish settlement in the world.

Sunday evening, the men took the older children to church while we ladies stayed home with our two little ones. They had great fun playing with lawn chairs while we chatted.

They also loved catching fireflies—another first for our New Zealand children!

In the morning, we went to this museum, where are displayed 83 intricately carved boat models—made from elephant tusk ivory and ebony wood. They tell the story of sailing boats from the earliest Egyptian boats to ones built so recently that they are still in use.

More Holmes County scenery.

Here, two men were cutting wheat with an old reaper.

After lunch, we were going back to our friend’s house, and passed an Amish schoolhouse where a few men were working on the building. Our friends stopped to ask if one of the men would give our children a buggy ride, and he seemed happy to oblige.

Relaxing before taking off again!