X-mas trip to Kentucky and Cincinnati Train Museum

Monday morning after Christmas we headed down to visit the Kentucky Leistensniders. We met at Brooklyn Pizza for lunch, where we continued to pass onto our children that, as Paul said, you know you are eating real pizza when you can fold it and when oil drips off it. The Chicago Leistensniders need to find a real pizza place in Chicago, where we have not enjoyed real pizza since the unfortunate closure of New York Style Pizza on Lawrence and Damen.


Soon after we got to the house we headed over to the park with the dogs. Clay made more progress in three minutes teaching Annika how to pump her legs on the swing than I have made in three or four years of effort. Matthew loved the dogs.


Matthew, as usual, loved the swing and held onto his car the whole time.


At night the kids and dogs played around for a while before our steak dinner. We played Wii bowling and golf late into the night.


R (Kentucky Beth) joined us in the evening after work and would be unable to go to the museum the next day because of work. Next year we'll arrange the trip over a weekend day so that we can get more photos of R.


The next morning we got up, had breakfast, packed the car, and headed up to Cincy. We got a bit of a later start than we had planned, and we hit some traffic caused by pothole filling on the way. After we got through the traffic, we stopped at Penn Station, a great sandwich place in a town south of Cincy. Turns out there is a Penn Station just five minutes away from Dan and Norma's house in Springboro! I expect to be eating some more of their toasty and tasty baked subs in 2009.




After we got up to the Train Station museum in Cincy, our first stop was Holiday Junction, where Clay got some ideas for his model trains,...



... Matthew and Annika played with some toy trains, ...


And Annika took a ride on the kid train.

Next stop was the hands-on exhibits at the Duke museum. Annika spent a lot of time in the Water Works area, where she got quite wet.

Matthew would still be in the toddler area if it were up to him.

He particularly liked rolling a ball down a ramp.


Paul and Clay had gone straight from Holiday Junction to the Natural History Museum. After a while, we joined them at the wonderful ice age exhibit. Annika rode a wolf and everyone had a great time. We stopped for a quick bite of ice cream at the museum's beautiful ice cream parlor, and then parted ways, with Paul and Clay running to see some of the History museum before it closed. We headed to the car and both Annika and Matthew were asleep within ten minutes. We had planned on getting to the museum earlier to spend more time there, but the Chicago Leistensniders were plenty exhausted and happy by the end. Perhaps next year we'll try to work in an Omnimax movie. -David

Ice Skating in Dayton

Tonight before dinner Janina, Beth, Annika, and David went to an ice skating rink that is close to Dan and Norma's house. Janina was the best skater, and she took the video of Beth, David, and Annika. Toward the end, you can hear Janina laugh as she is almost hit by another skater.

The Princess Tent

Dan got a princess tent for the daybed in the basement, and for the last couple of nights Annika has slept down there with Dan and/or Beth. Here are Annika and Matthew playing in the tent during the day.


Last night Beth and Annika slept on the pullout single mattress below the daybed with the tent on it. They are on the "porch" of the princess tent. Papa (Dan) slept up in the tent. I went downstairs to wake up Beth and Annika at around 10:00 am, and I found them snuggled up. Super cute. Click on the picture to see a close up.


And then a few minutes later Matthew helped me wake them up. -David

Matthew and Annika Dancing to "The Polar Express"