Okay, an update finally after several people have asked me about it! We are in Cincinnati! There are lots of great things and lots of not-as-great things/things we miss about Perrysburg. But, we've only been here three weeks, and we're slowly getting to know our surroundings.This picture is of Asher is on his first Christmas last week. He didn't really seem to care much about it, except he loved finding all the new things to chew on. (Come on, upper teeth!) Here he is taking a break from chewing on the box to my most-useful-gift-EVAR, a TomTom XL. It's totally rockin, and I use it everyday. I was convinced I could find my way around here, and told Neil to just get me a map. Then, on the 23rd during a bunch of sleet at dusk, my mom and I decided we needed to go shopping. The highways were crazy and we got lost trying an alternate route that a woman at Once Upon a Child told us about. When we got home I told Neil I'd prefer the GPS.
Joel loved Christmas. He loved having his Grandmas and Papas here, he loved seeing his uncles, he loved giving everyone the ornaments he's made for them... oh yeah, and he loved opening presents. Here we see two of the big winners: a fireman costume and a play kitchen. The other big winners are a Tinkertoy set and a transporter. (The tub crayons are pretty loved, too.) He even dressed up in his fireman outfit and went down to the fire station with Neil and my dad.
So many presents to chew on!
We celebrated my dad's birthday while everyone was here. I made him a really yummy chocolate cake and frosting from scratch. They were loved by all. (Except Asher and myself, since we cannot have dairy... boo...) And yes, that is his age at the bottom of the cake in binary. Thank you for asking.
Whoa! Check out Joel's bottoms! He's wearing underpants!!! I told Joel that if he wanted to, he could start using the potty and get underpants in his stocking. Well, we started on Thursday afternoon, one week before Christmas... and 4 or 5 days later he was accident-free (for the most part - of course we have one every few days because we're playing too hard or something). So, underpants in the stocking is was! As you can see, though, he likes using them as a toolbelt.
Here are the sweet brothers playing. These two are amazing. It is awesome watching the sibling relationship grow. No one can get Asher to laugh like Joel can, and they just absolutely love each other. It's so fun to see them play!We've been checking out Cinci little by little over the past 2.5 weeks, and there are good points and less desirable points. First, I don't think grocery store baggers are very well trained around here. They just kind of throw stuff into bags, and by "stuff" I mean four items tops into my giant reusable bags. Sigh...
As far as places of business, the most notable have been Jungle Jims and Trader Joes. Trader Joe's peanut butter is quite possibly the most amazing thing I've ever placed into my mouth. Apples and celery are simply incomplete without it. I actually took a picture of it, which I will share later. Jungle Jim's is huge, tiring, and a foodie dreamworld. The alcohol section is as big as some grocery stores, I've never seen so much cheese ever (and they have raw cheese! *swoon*), and the international section is amazing. Wow, wow, wow. We got all kinds of rockin stuff. (I'm making coconut flour pancakes for breakfast tomorrow - yum!) The only disappointing thing is the amount of food there from China. We all know that we shouldn't eat food from China (go check your frozen foods), and some of the fruit and some of the meat was from China. We were going to get some frozen rabbit (we've never had it before), but, alas, the sticker said it was from China. So, our diets remain rabbit free...
Joel and Asher and I went to the zoo the other day, and it is HUGE. I only have Toledo to compare it to, but really. It's huge. The train ride is fantastic, and I made sure to buy the membership that has unlimited train-carousel-tram rides (because that's what you do when you have little boys!). The lights were kinda lame (it was the "Festival of Lights" for the holidays), but I can't wait to go during the day and see more of the actual zoo.
The libraries... well, I've been to two of them and... I miss Way. But, there's 30-some in the Cinci Public Library system, so I'm just going to keep checking out the others around me. Storytime starts again next week, so we'll be heading over for that. But, really, the Loveland one is in a strip mall. And, as Joel will tell you, it has no train table. The great thing, though, is that you can check out magazines, and they carry a decent number of kids' magazines. I was able to check out a couple issues of Babybug, which Asher loves.
The towns here are pretty fun to explore, too. My favorite so far is Madeira. There's a great coffeeshop, all kinds of fun little shops to go in, a couple of fun restaurants, and a Kroger right in the downtown! We are kind of leaning toward Madeira as a place to settle. I'm pretty in love with it. But, there are zillions of little towns around here to check out. Stay tuned.
Please come visit us in Cinci. There's lots of nifty stuff to do, and we'd love to see you. (We have an extra bedroom in our apartment!)
posted by Anne @ 5:38 PM
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