20130728 + Feel Good Fair

20130728 + Up in the am and helped D finish getting ready for camp, then ran him to McD's for bfast and finally to the embark point for h to go to camp. I got his settled and ready and then left me boy there for his annual trip to Boy Scout  Camp of the week :-(

Home and finished getting caught up on personal paperwork, them to get a hair cut and ready for the work week ahead. LJG&I then picked up Gma&paW and headed to the Ohio State Fair. We looked at tons of exhibits, petted all the animals, ate some fair food, dropped ice scream on the ground and checked out the butter cow.

This fair is my annual trip to see how I fare vs the population, and it always makes me feel better about my life. Look at the sea of people and just compare for yourself :-P

20130714 - Family Times

20130714 - UP and got some things done and planned for vacation.  Headed to Delaware for family pictures and then on to Ken & Nancy's for some cousin time and swimming.  We ended the day at the Franklin County Fair with some funnel cakes and lemon shakes-ups.

20120728 - Grant's Day

20120728 - Grant woke me up this morning, 'Dad get up! It's Dad and me day!'. So up and out we went. First we got bfast at McD's.








Then we headed to putt-putt, with a stop at a garage sale. We played a round of golf and G got a hole in one!



G them hit a bunch of balls in the batting cages. Another round of putt-putt and then a couple hundred more pitches and some great hits!



Now it was time for a proper lunch of corn dogs, fair fries and a jumbo lemonade at the State Fair!




After lunch we got a birds eye view of the Horseshoe, Huntington Park and downtown Columbus from a helicopter!













We landed, looked at some horses and cows, saw a knight, and had some icecream.

Amazingly we ran into another Winger clan! John, Betty, John III, Tracey, Sierra, Eden, and from Germany, Jessica, Sam and Max! We checked out the rides, but settled on taking the skylift back to the front and getting a funnel cake for the road.

Next stop was Huntington Park that we flew over earlier for a Clippers game. We sat right behind the home dugout. G got a ball from the teams practice, some nachos and a new hat. He did some pitching and did pretty good.

We sat by some nice folks that let him ring their cow bell and the Clippers won! Grant loved it!





G claimed the nachos were just a snack so on the way home we stopped at Arby's for dinner. Home about 11pm to tell L all about the day, eat dinner and watch some of the Olympics.

What a great day with my littlest man!

20110920 - Bullets and Funnel Cakes

20110920 - Up in the morning and D&J to school and L in to work.  G&I headed out with Arno and Gwen to run some errands.  We stopped at Meijer where G got some handcuffs and Gwen picked up some gifts for family back home.  We grabbed some coffee and some lunch at McD's.  A stop a Wal-Mart for X-Large flipflops for Arno. A stop at the garage door store, where G dropped a lock display on his head and Arno and G played with an automatic door.  I got my parts and we headed home and we fixed the garage door.  Pretty soon the big boys got done with school and made there way home and we piled in our huge gas guzzling car and headed north to the Farm. 

Gma&paW had nice spread at the Farmhouse and we snacked, gave the full tour and out to the barn to visit the animal, ponies, cats and GUNS!  Everyone got to shoot.  It was Arno and Gwen
s first time shooting and they did pretty good (Gwen did better ;-)  We were shooting 22s and had a lot of fun.  One last shot for Arno, a 9mm Ruger pistol  !!!BANG!!!  that was LOUD!  Arno got a swing on the rope in the barn and then we headed out for dinner.


Dinner was not at any old restaurant...  no way....  We hit the Ashland County Fair!  This was a new true American experience for our friends.  We saw every kind of animal possible and some new ones.  We talked to to the horses and we ate one of everything there!  We swung by the Farm on the way home and then headed down the road.

Back home all boys to bed and we stayed up having very good adult conversations we don't normally have the chance to...  After lots of beer and many hours of idea discussion we hit the hay.

20110804 - State Fair Feel Good

20110804 - Up and at the desk all day.  Out to the Ohio Stat Fair with LJ&G to meet up with the Coles.  We checked out the ducks, chickens, rabbits, sheep, cows, horses, pigs and people.  We consumed grease and extra salt and had a great time.  J&I climbed the 106 stairs on the giant slide while L&G took a pony ride.





No visit to the St. Fair would be complete without seeing the butter cow and getting some ice cream, so we did that too!

We stayed until the fireworks went off.  About the same time D was having a HUGE campfire at camp (my buddy Scott is there and has been sending me pictures all week ;-)  Home and boys to bed, I'm up late backing up my PCs.

100806 - State Fair

100806 - Up and sat at the desk all day.  Gma&paW down and we all went to the Ohio State Fair for our annual dose of feel good about yourself, comparative to the population :-)  We saw Smokey the bear, pig races, horses, butter cow, real cows, goats, chickens, llamas, sheep and people that looked like all of the above...  We had fair fries, lemonade, corn dogs, doughnut balls and CHOCOLATE COVERED BACON.  YUK!

100718 + Fair but not the weather

100718 - Up and J had a bad bloody nose.  So J&I skipped church today while LD&G went.  After we got the nose under control J, Lilly and I headed out to to get gas and Target.  We all met back at home and L fixed an awesome lunch of brats, corn on the cob and fresh melon.

After lunch we loaded up in the car and headed to the Franklin County Fair.  We saw a big storm coming and waited until it passed, found a geocache, got some gas and then in to the fair to see the rabbits, chickens, horse races, displays, dog show, lemonade, bucket of fries, clown show, horse show, funnel cake and back to the car before the next storm rolled through.

We stopped and picked up a pizza on the way home and got home to find Lilly hiding in the basement...  Outside we found Lori's garden flattened and a big part of our cherry tree down against the play-set.

Nothing we could do with all of the rain so we ate, watched some TV, got the boys to bed and hopefully back on some sort of a schedule.

100717 + UP feeling better.  G helped me get the tag along bike thing attached to my bike.  We got G on it and he can help pedal and off we went...  DJG&I headed out on the bikes to get D's pictures developed from camp.  and then a stop at the Gahanna hardware store for water saving stuff.  We rode out bikes home and installed our water stuff and did experiments to see how much water the new things will save us.  The boys were amazed and I hope my water bill drops.  We headed back out to get the car ready for the trip, all cleaned out and fixed the seat.  We got all our music and movies loaded up and are ready for the road.  We ran some errands and had a huge dinner at the Hometown buffet.  We hit the playground to let the boys run off some of their energy.  Home and the boys played with toys as they packed their tool boxes for the trip.

100530 + Nervous Shine

100530 + Up and all to church. G even stayed in his own class (I stayed too, but in the background)! Home and L packed lunch and we headed into the middle of no place to the New Straightsville OH Moonshine Festival.

It was extremely hot out today and the festival was extremely small. The majority of the 30 or so people attending sure looked Luke locals and we felt nervous and obviously out of place.
They had some cool cars there on the 1 block festival and some fair food and games/rides that were sure to suck any remaining income out of the locals.

We did find some shade and a historical cave that we hiked to, where the unionization of coal minors started.


Back to the car and greatful it was still there in tact and with the AC blasting we headed for a more civilized area.
We drove north for about an hour and ended up at Buckey Lake. I had the boys remove their underpants and just wear their short so they could get wet if they wanted to (GOOD IDEA!). We found a beach and the boys had a blast!

We were lucky enough to find a geocache there too, L's first find on her own! The boys trades some stuff and then into the car and headig home in their underpants. I stopped at a little pizza shop there and got us some food that we ate at a questionable skate park. Having had enough nervous encounters for one day we headed home, got the boys cleaned up, watched the rest of Iron Man and then off to bed. The boys said it was a fun day.

100507 + Bounce

100507 + Up for a full fast day of work. Then J&I met some guys @ the church to get a bouncy thing to set up @ the school fair. We got it set up, J tested it and then we headed home for dinner. Chris came over for a couple beers and then we took the bouncy thing down and back to the church. Boys watched Back to the Future 2. L&I up watching TV, both fell asleep on the couch...

091011 + Real Ka-Nig-hits

091011 + Up L,D&J to church, G&I hung out
Lunch, Roof, Renaissance fair and Real Ka-Nig-its.
Shopping mall, bed early.

090803 - Ohio State Fair

090803 - Up super fast day at work. After dinner I didn't want to sit around the house. We packed up and headed downtown to the Ohio State Fair. We were surprised that there were not as many animals as in years past, but still enough to satisfy the boys. We some some horse drawn wagon shows, the butter cow and ice cream, some junk in the vendor building the boys could buy, pony rides, carousel, giant magic carpet slide, finished off by elephant ears and funnel cakes. We all had a good time and Lori and I got our yearly dose of 'feel good' looking at all the fair folks; we arn't so strange... maybe... we think... Home with some tired happy boys.

080810 - 60

080810 - Up and Gma & pa W down. Today is GpaW's 60th birthday. We headed out the Ohio State Fair. We celebrated with elephant ears, greasy fries & vinegar, icecream, gyros, mini doughnuts and slushies. Grant loved the horse & rodeo show and we all enjoyed the animals in and out of the cages... After an exhausting day we got some pizza for dinner and Doc joined us. It was a nice day in the midst of the several weeks of shock. Glad dad made it to 60!