Vacation Time

ROAD TRIP!!!

(for photo's click here)

Vacations consisting of road trips and sight-seeing were a regular part of my upbringing and I am thrilled that we have started that same tradition with Toby. Our family road trips consist of more baseball than my childhood vacations, but that is A-Okay with me.  Spending quality time on the road together is a lot of fun. We choose to drive during times that Toby would normally be napping so it is easier on him, and it gives us a good chance to talk about anything and everything. Sometimes we are so busy with the hustle and bustle of life that we don’t get a chance to relax and just ‘be’.

Day I

We started our vacation by heading to Chicago and arriving in the late evening. We stayed at a Holiday Inn which, to my surprise, was very nice! I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but it was nice. Jeff, Julie & Brityn Eaton met up with us along the way so we stopped by their room for a little bit to chat about our plans for the next day before nodding off to lala land. We all slept great! Toby is an awesome traveler!! He sleeps very well in his pack-n-play. We are totally blessed by this. (He is napping in his pack-n-play as I type this).

Day II

We started out by heading to the Golden Arches (Yes, I will admit that I had a sausage, egg, & Cheese McGriddle) for breakfast. It’s vacation… That’s my only excuse! Haha! Once we all finished eating, we were off to the Lincoln Park Zoo for some fun with the animal downtown Chi-Town. I have heard many great things about this Free Zoo, so I was really looking forward to going and seeing Tobiah’s reaction to the animals. He seemed to really enjoy it. I kept trying to explain to him that these animals are like his toys (which have all been given names by Grandpa Dana) at home. I don’t know if he understood, but he was really excited to see the giraffe’s(Jerry’s). Once we made our rounds through the zoo we headed over to the Navy Pier. It was a gorgeous sunny day so it felt great being outside near the cool breeze off the water. We enjoyed lunch at a fun Hamboger restaurant (The Goat Head) on the Pier and then got packed up for the drive to Cleveland. This evening we stayed at a Radisson (which unfortunately ended up being a little under par, but it served its purpose).

DayIII

We awoke and loaded up the car so we could head over to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We parked our car and drove downtown with the Eaton’s so we could split parking, etc. There was a little city center that had some restaurants, so we ate at a small café on the second floor. The food was good, but the services was EXTREMELY slow… It’s a good thing we weren’t under any time constraints. :p Once we finished eating we strolled down the street to The R&RHOF. Julie was summoned by a local news channel for an interview before we went inside. It was her minute of fame!! J THE R&RHOF was a pretty big building and it was fun seeing all of the old and new music displays. Once again, Toby was great!! He liked all of the guitars, other instruments and lights. (Dad, you would love this)!! Once we finished there, we headed back toward the ballpark to take in a game. It started raining, so thank goodness we had our umbrella along. The rain stopped shortly after we got inside the ballpark so we enjoyed a beautiful evening and stayed for about 3 full innings of high-scoring (Indian/Reds) baseball. The ballpark was nice, but nothing like Target Field. We took off for Pittsburgh this evening.

Days IV & V

We arrived in Pittsburgh and stayed at an historic hotel called the Priory Hotel. This was a really neat hotel that used to be a monastery. It was charming with tin ceilings, 12”Baseboard, and amazing craftsmanship. It was similar to a bed and breakfast atmosphere with a delicious ‘continental’ breakfast in the morning. They served fresh sliced fruits, Danishes, breads, cereals, etc. on silver platters. The dining tables had white linens and cloth napkins. We ate outside in their courtyard area both mornings where there was a fountain that mesmerized Toby. He also enjoyed the breakfast which consisted of melons and egg yolk. He LOVED it and it was fun for us to feed him some real foods while we were enjoying our breakfasts. We did take in a Twins game, and they forgot to show up (played poorly) so we had to find other things to enjoy; such as the view of the city.  We took a tour of PNC ballpark the following day which was a lot of fun, and then hit the road again. Destination: Cincinnati.

Day VI, VII, & VIII

We arrived in Cincinnati and our hotel was a 2 bedroom apartment, converted into a hotel. It was HUGE and wonderful for all of us. Toby had his own bedroom to sleep in, which made it easy for him to fall asleep at night and nap during the day. We also had a full kitchen so I was able to easily prepare all of Toby’s food and wash bottles, etc. We enjoyed exploring downtown Cincy and Tobiah and I danced in fountain square during ‘salsa night’. Every Thursday is salsa night and they have live musicians and dancers. It was a lot of fun!! Our second day in Cincy consisted of a great deal of walking. We strolled through a nice park area called Eden Park. Toby had lunch there, overlooking the river, and swung at the playground swings for a little while. He was having fun and so were we! When we got back to the hotel, Toby took and nap and we got ready for some serious walking later that day. We explored the area around the Great American Ballpark, Walked across the “Purple People Bridge” (which had a wedding taking place on it while we were crossing), and introduced Toby to Kentucky on the other side of the river. He didn’t seem overly impressed so we headed back and eventually met up for supper at The Montgomery Inn for supper. It is a restaurant known for their ribs and barbecue sauce, so we had to check it out. I would say it was very good! The following day we celebrated Julie’s 30^th Birthday by having lunch at Johnny Rocket’s and taking in another Twins game. Once again, the Twins didn’t show up so it wasn’t overly entertaining for us. Not only that, but it was HOT; too hot for the babies so we had to keep going into the shade and air conditioned areas. After the game, we left for Chicago.

Day IX

We arrived in Chicago late on Day VIII so we promptly checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Swissotel and had great views of the Navy Pier. The ferris wheel was all lit up and it was fun for Toby to watch out the window. This hotel was probably one of the nicest I have ever stayed at! It was very modern and chic! It was pretty fabulous! We strolled around Chicago all morning and into the early afternoon on the final day of our trip. We wanted to take some fun pictures with Toby, and show him the bean! He loves seeing himself in mirrors so we thought this would be especially fun! We took a lot of photos in Chicago, but clearly Toby’s favorite part was the fountain pool near the Art Institute. He LOVED crawling around and splashing in the water with all of the other kids. He was in his element! It had been such a hot day that this was a wonderful way for him to cool off. He didn’t want to leave but after 45 minutes we had to keep moving. We ended our walk with a stop at Magnolia Bakery to purchase the famous Banana Pudding. YUM! It was a nice treat as we left the city. (It didn’t even last until we reached the city limits).

All in all, we had a wonderful 1^st family vacation! We created some great memories, and although Toby won’t remember it he will have the photographs and our renditions of this trip to look back at. 

Toby is now 11 Months! It’s so hard to wrap my mind around that, but I will soon have to start telling people that he’s 1. He is growing and changing so fast!!! I’m excited for each new day!!

Until we meet again,
~Stephanie