Kings Island

We were staying in Kentucky on Olivia's actual birthday, so we decided to make a short drive to southern Ohio (state #20) to visit Kings Island.  Brian and I had visited this amusement park prior to having kids, but we were amazed by how much it has changed.  The park was sold a few years back, and the new owners have added many new, quality coasters.  

The first order of business after entering the park was to get the kids measured.  Once they get their "official" measurement they receive an armband stating how tall they are.  Doing this allows them to avoid having to be constantly measured at each individual attraction.  They both measured above 54 inches, which is the magic number for coaster-loving kids.  At 54" you can ride any coaster.  I knew Olivia would hit the mark, but I wasn't sure if Owen would.  He just did meet the height requirement, and he was so happy.

 We spent the whole day at the park and rode every notable thrill ride- including The Beast- currently the #6 wooden coaster in the world and Diamondback-  currently the #9 steel coaster in the world and the kids first hypercoaster (a coaster w/ a drop over 200 feet).  We even got Nana on a coaster!  In case you don't know, theme parks are our thing.  Brian and I loved them before we had kids, and now that our kids are tall enough, it is wonderful to share our love of roller coasters with them.

Ark Encounter

 The Ark Encounter is a Noah's Ark-themed attraction that opened in July of this year.  It is located a short distance from the family farm in Kentucky, so we decided to check it out.  Because the park is brand-new, there are still some organizational issues.  We visited on a holiday, and you could tell they were still working out the kinks of managing large crowds.  Fortunately we did not have to wait in the extremely long line to buy tickets because we purchased ours online.

What I liked about the Ark is that it was built to the dimensions as specified in the Bible.  This allowed me to actually experience the wonder that the Ark was.  Of course, no one knows exactly what the interior of the Ark looked like or what life on the Ark was like. Some artistic liberties were taken with the inside portion of the Ark, but I was okay with those.

I should mention that as of now, this is a straight-up tourist attraction.  I mean, there's an add-on where you can go zip-lining or ride a camel.  I was not moved spiritually by the attraction at all, but I don't think it was designed to do that.  If it were, there would have been a chapel or a minister on hand or something.  I appreciated it for what it was, but it is definitely not a place that I would plan a spiritual pilgrimage to or anything.

Most of the exhibits inside of the ark consisted of large signs explaining the events from creation, leading up to the ark, and then what happened afterwards.  The signs were beautiful, but there were so many people on the ark that it took a while to get up to them.  Then, once I did I felt like if I stopped to read it that I would be holding up everyone behind me.  So, I just took pictures of all of the signs that I will read at a later date. 

Okay- here's the part that was surprising.  There were all of these cages on the ark with animatronic animals in them.  There were the usual bear, pig, rodent-type animals, but there was also a section with animatronic dinousaurs.  The claim is that dinos were on the ark.  I had always assumed that this was not the case, so I was a bit surprised to find them here.  There were signs explaining the claim of dinosaurs being on the ark, and I took pictures of them all, but I have not had the opportunity to investigate this yet.  Overall, I enjoyed the trip to the Ark Encounter.  I would not make a special trip to get here, but not a bad way to spend a few hours if in the area.

Visiting the Kentucky Farm

We had a great fall break this year- even though it began in an interesting way with us hunkering down to brace for Hurricane Matthew.  Fortunately, we got through the night with no lasting damage.  Once Matthew had passed, we set out on the road headed to Kentucky to meet up with Brian's dad.  Even though Poppy and Nana live in Delaware, Poppy is originally from Kentucky and grew up on a farm there.  As a child, Brian spent a lot of time with his Poppy and Mama-Doll on the farm in Kentucky.  It worked out that Poppy and Nana were going to be in Kentucky on the weekend of our break, and so we decided to take the kids so that they could see the Sanders' family farm.

The farm is located in a small town not too far from Lexington.  I had never been to this part of Kentucky, but it is beautiful.  There are rolling hills, horses, and large horse farms everywhere you look.  The Sanders farm had cows, and the kids were just delighted with them.  They really wanted to pet one, but the cows were having none of that.  We drove / walked all around the property.  I was happy to finally get to visit the farm that Brian has been talking about for years, and his stories were accurate- it is a beautiful piece of land.  We don't know when or if we'll get to visit the farm again, so we took lots of pictures.

 While we were in the area, we did do a few other touristy things- one of which was visiting the grave of Man-O-War.  I'm not the biggest follower of horse racing, but I have heard of Man-O-War and know him to be one of the greatest racing horses ever to live.  What I didn't know is that he only ever lost one race and that the name of the horse that beat him was "Upset" and that that's were we get the sports term "an upset" (like "it was an upset") from.  You learn something new every day.

 Olivia's actual birthday occurred while we were in Kentucky, so we had the chance to celebrate that with Poppy, Nana, and Uncle Dustin.  Nana even ordered a cake for her.  Olivia received many nice gifts- including a new American Girl Doll.  It was a great trip.

Olivia's Sleepover

 I can't believe that Olivia is turning 10 this year! Double digits!  Since "10" is a big birthday, we decided to let her have a party.  I asked her what type of party she wanted, and she answered "sleepover" without any hesitation.  We ended up hosting nine of her friends for a night of fun and celebration.  The girls rode bikes, danced, played Pie Face, did make-overs (using up every ounce of my make-up), and stayed up all. night. long. It was a loooong night, but as far as I can tell everyone had a good time.  In case your wondering Brian and Owen got out of Dodge.  They went to the movies and spent the night at a hotel.