Last week Shannon had a couple days off school so I took the same days off work and the four of us headed to Cincinnati for the weekend. We left on Thursday with the plan of leaving kind of early and getting there in time to visit the zoo for a few hours. Of course the best laid plans rarely work out for us and this trip was no different. We didn't get out of Huntington until close to noon and then, about 3/4 of the way there we had a flat tire. I had Lisa set the parking brake and then pulled the jack out so I could change the tire. However, we were stopped on a long slow incline so as soon as the tire left the ground the van still slipped back a little bit and actually bent the jack up. So I quickly finished jacking up the van and replaced the tire with the spare and we got back on the road.
Eventually we ended up in Newport, KY (by now it was too late to go to the zoo) so we stopped at a Graeters Ice Cream shop for a snack. We had been looking for a Goodyear so we could buy a new tire so I asked the girl behind the counter and, as luck would have it, there was one immediately next door to the ice cream shop. While our tire was being changed we went to this little mall that was mostly restaurants and looked around. They had a Halloween shop where I bought some stuff for my costume this year (I'm going to be a "nice" werewolf according to Emily). We also stopped by a book store and bought a cookbook that is laid out in a nice format for planning meals - it does it for you. Each meal is broken down with a main and a side dish so all we have to do is shop and cook without thinking about the menu. Each meal is supposed to be a "20 minute" meal to make so it should be convenient.
Finally we got the van back and headed to the Millennium Hotel which we had booked on Priceline for $50/night - a great deal considering we were right downtown. For dinner we headed to a pretty nice seafood restaurant McCormick and Schmick's. Eventually we ended the day and went to sleep in anticipation of going to the Newport Aquarium the next morning.
The Aquarium was pretty cool. They had a ton of different fish and just as many different turtles it seemed. Emily was proud to let me know they are called "Tortuga's." We also paid a little extra for a "Penguin Encounter" which let us go back to a little room that three penguins live in and we got to pet them while the lady (Rebecca I think) taught us about them. These penguins were pretty neat and were from South Africa. Because they are from S. Africa they really challenged my idea of penguins. In my mind they are always from some frozen iceberg but these guys live in temperatures up to 110 at times. they were pretty cool and they really liked to play with the wrist strap on Shannon's camera.
After the Aquarium (which was right around the corner from the Ice Cream shop) we stopped at a German restaurant called the Hofbrau House for lunch and a big stein of beer. Lisa was driving so she made me drink most of her beer so I was feeling pretty good by the time we left. The food wasn't that great - but their weiss beir was pretty good.
On Saturday we headed to Kings Island for a day of fun (from 12pm - 7pm). We spent most of our time in the Nickelodeon part of the park riding rides that both Emily and Shannon could ride. However, there were also a few rides there that were perfect "in-between" rides for Shannon. She is too small to go on most of the Adult rides but she is too big for most of Emily's rides. Instead they had some rides like "The Avatar" and "The Raptor" which were perfect for Shannon. The Avatar is a big sled that spins and slides back and forth on a ramp. It spins pretty fast and the ramp goes up and down so it was pretty thrilling for her. Then the Raptor was a suspended roller coaster. It didn't have any big spins or loops but it went fast and was, by far, the biggest roller coaster she has been on so far. She really seemed to enjoy both rides which was cool because she wouldn't have even thought about going on them last year.
After we had fun on the rides we played a few different midway games and everyone ended up winning at least one prize. Overall it was a cool day at the park. However, at around 7pm they start to shut down the kids rides and start to turn the entire park into a haunted house throughout the month of October. At this time the employees all start to show up dressed in costume and with pretty good fake injuries on their heads and stuff. While the girls dealt with seeing them OK I'm sure they wouldn't have liked it when the employees tried to scare them so we headed out. We ate dinner across the street from our hotel and then headed to bed again for our final morning before heading home.
Lisa had planned a nice surprise for the girls on Sunday and we headed to the US Bank Arena for the Disney Princesses On Ice show. The show was OK if you like watching figure skating and the girls seemed to really enjoy it so that was cool. Before the show started (we got there a little early) we actually got to see the Cincinnati Walk for Breast Cancer. It was huge - there had to be thousands participating. There was a small group of young women at the end cheering and yelling and just getting the crowd fired up. They had some pretty funny chants - one was "No Bikes, No Scooters, We're Walking for our Hooters" they were really into it and it was cool to see.
Here are some photos of the walk