Visiting the Maitland's in Columbus

We have been trying for a while now to get our schedules worked out so that we could go visit my sister and her husband in Columbus. It seemed like we could never get our work schedules to coordinate. Luckily last week we were finally able to make it happen. We got the car all packed up and then headed just 3 hours north to Columbus.

Jennifer said we packed more for a 4 day trip to Columbus than we did for our 12 days out west. As we were getting everything packed up we realized that we couldn't find our case of DVD's that the kids usually watch on road trips. The last place any of us remember seeing it was in the rental car in Vegas. I called to see if anyone had turned it in and no such luck. Good thing that the kids napped on the 3 hour ride.

The next day we went out and did some exploring in the area. Andrea had heard about a candy factory tour at a place called Anthony Thomas Chocolates. The tour ended up being pretty interesting and more interesting than I anticipated since we had been to multiple candy factory tours around here. They not only make some of their own candies, specifically buckeyes, but they also make specialty candy for other companies. They didn't allow us to take pictures inside the factory or I could have shown you that they were already making Valentine's candy for Dove and Twix. Yes, Valentine's candy 6 months before the actual holiday!

Next stop was the Columbus Zoo! None of us had ever been to this zoo before so we were all excited to explore it.

We got to the polar bear exhibit and they were really active. They were swimming all over the place. Brinley was really excited about seeing them. In fact she was excited about seeing all the animals because she loves them.

The lions were tired and sleeping on top of this old airplane.

They had a large safari area that housed all kinds of animals from Africa. The giraffes are one of our favorite animals.

We also had to see the penguins, which are Aunt Andrea's favorite animal. We stuck around for one of the keeper talks where they talked about the penguins and even fed them all kinds of fish.

These two loved the penguins. Hopefully little baby Maitland will enjoy them too in a few months.

We also payed for some nectar to feed the lorikeets. The kids had tried to do this before and completely freaked out when the birds landed on them. Thankfully none landed on the kids today.

We also took a boat ride tour of Dinosaur Island. Landon loved it, which is pretty much the case with anything dinosaurs.

The big T-Rex at the end of the ride.

First of all I am glad that there wasn't a real gorilla this big in the zoo. The kids can never get enough of climbing on things.

One of our family's favorite animals is the Okapi. It is one that most people don't even know about. It looks like part horse and part zebra. It's neck is a little longer than a horse and it is most closely related to the giraffe. What a unique animal!

The kids with the baby elephant statue.

Brinley with my favorite animals, elephants.

One of our last animals that we saw was this group of tigers. They were all tired and just lounging around.

The girls and Landon all on this huge tiger statue.

We have always struggled when away from home with getting our exercise in. Well, with our training just starting for the Bourbon Chase coming up in October we decided that we needed to get our runs in.

The next day Andrea had to work so we decided to do a little exploring of our own. We went to downtown historic Dublin to participate in the Fairy Door Trail. The downtown area has 7 different fairy doors located in different local businesses. You have to go around and find the names of the fairies and fill out the card so that you can get a prize.

Here is Brinley with the first fairy door which shows you how small they really are.

When we stopped in the chocolate shop the kids wanted to get a little treat. 

Here were some of the other little fairy doors. Some places had little decorations to go around the doors too. It was really neat.

The prize for finding all the fairy doors was a shirt that said "I Believe in Fairy Trails!"

I also saw online some of the different play areas that they had in town. This one caught my eye because Brinley loves rabbits. It wasn't too far away so I decided to take the kids to it. They weren't really impressed, mostly because there was a little spray park down at the bottom of the hill. That looked more fun to the kids, but we didn't bring our swim suits. Here Jennifer and the kids were trying to recreate the rabbit pose.

Brinley refused to take a picture unless she could be on one foot just like the rabbits.

We even stopped in to see Aunt Andrea at work. We explored the YMCA and even swam in the outdoor pool for a while.

After Aunt Andrea got off work we headed out to a local watering hole to see what Pins was all about.

Pins is a type of bowling game. You use smaller balls and the lane is much smaller than a real bowling alley. It is a much faster paced game than bowling and you even get to roll 3 balls per frame.

Brinley lining up for the shot.

No finger holes in these balls. They were about the size of a softball and weighed about 5 or 6 pounds.

We had a lot of fun at Pins and would definitely come back next time we are in town.

Dublin, Ohio is the home of Wendy's - the fast food chain. We ate at one of the original locations while we were there and they even had a little museum inside the location.

They had a statue out front of Dave Thomas. The kids didn't want to take their picture with it, but then i was goofing around and pretended to take a bite out of his frosty. Then Landon said he wanted a picture with him.

We skipped the frosty at Wendy's and instead headed over to the new dessert shop in town, Moon Rolls. The line was almost out the door, but the dessert was worth the wait. The kids shared this cotton candy flavored ice cream. They said it was delicious.

Jennifer and I split the Milky Way flavored ice cream. It was delicious. 

Saturday morning we woke up and headed over to Duck Donuts, which is a made to order donut shop. It was packed and took about an hour for our order to be made.

They are all fresh fried cake donuts that are then dipped in a flavor and then topped with all kinds of stuff. They were all delicious. My favorite was the maple bacon, but the peanut butter and chocolate one was great too!

That afternoon we headed to downtown Columbus, near OSU campus, for a special little treat for Landon. There is a bar that has all kinds of old arcade games that you can play for free. On the weekends during the day the place is considered kid friendly and we decided to check it out. Here Landon and I played TMNT with a local man. We actually beat the game which was pretty awesome.

Landon even tried his hand at Frogger.

The girls tried to kill some zombies in House of the Living Dead.

Brinley really liked Donkey Kong Jr.

Look at this guy. He threw a complete fit when I told him that we had to leave. He said that he wasn't done playing. This was after we had been playing in the place for about 2 hours. Landon loves him some video games.

We brought the kid's bikes with us because we thought that they would enjoy riding to the local parks. We finally got them out on Saturday night and rode to the park and played for a little while.

Sunday we slept in a little and then got up and got ready for church.

After church we headed over to a little restaurant that came recommend to us by Andrea and Chris, called Sweet Carrot. Brinley loved it because it had pictures of rabbits everywhere.

It was delicious. I had a corn cake with brisket piled on top. Then BBQ sauce, coleslaw and corn. It was the same thing that Guy Fieri from the Food Network ate when he came to visit.

Guy's signature that he leaves at all the locations he visits. 

Andrea and Chris had something to do on Sunday night so we headed out to my favorite restaurant, Giordano's. The pizza takes about an hour to make and cook so we went to watch them make the pizzas and even got some of the dough to play with.

By far, my favorite meal. If we are ever close to a location then we usually end up there at some point. I always send a picture to my brother to let him know what he is missing out on. He always asks for the leftovers, but there usually isn't a single bite left.

I took the kids downtown to see the horseshoe, or Ohio State's field. While we were there I told the kid's to pretend to protest and chant "Fire Meyer" and of course they listened and thought it was funny. The people around us taking pictures didn't find it as funny. Jennifer overheard them when they were walking to their car saying that there was more of them and that they could take us. Silly people thought about beating up a father and his 2 children over a funny video.

It was a lot of fun going up and seeing my big sister in Columbus. She is going to have a lot of changes coming here in the near future with their little baby on the way. I am so glad that they live a little closer to us now so that visits aren't as spread out as they once were. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Heflin's Head West - Grand Canyon and Las Vegas

After our days at Disneyland we then packed up the rental car and started out toward our next adventure. We were on our way to Arizona and the Grand Canyon. It was around a 6 hour car ride, so the little DVD players were plugged up and running all the movies the kids could watch. 

On the road to Arizona.

We made it! Arizona was the kids 17th state. Only 33 more to go!

After we checked into the hotel we decided to try and go see the canyon at nighttime. Before we even made it into the park we spotted our first wildlife, an elk. If you don't see it, it is because it is hiding behind that tree. 

The kids first time at the Grand Canyon National Park. Jennifer and I both went here as kids and we had totally different experiences. Jennifer loved it and thought it was one of the most amazing sites she had ever seen. I just remember it being a big hole in the ground.

We spotted about 10 elk in the first hour of being at the park. After that the kids didn't really even care when I pointed them out.

One of the first views of the canyon from the south rim.

Family selfie with the canyon.

The kids wanted to climb on everything and Jennifer was a nervous wreck. She wouldn't hardly let them get out of her arms reach. 

Family picture.

Sometimes they are actually nice to each other.

This is one of my all-time favorite photos. Just me and my little man sitting here without a care in the world. 

The girls wanted to join us out on the ledge too. Doesn't look as dangerous from this angle. Three of us are shoe-less because we didn't want our sandals to fall off.

We saw this awesome looking tree and Landon said he wanted to climb up in it.

We stuck around to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful sight! Pictures aren't even able to do justice to the beauty.

Sitting on the edge with my favorite people in the world.

Jennifer was a nervous wreck the whole time. She wouldn't let the kids out of her reach and tried to hold onto them at all times.

The grand canyon proved to be much more impressive to me as an adult. I could have sat and looked at it all day long.

The next day we got up and headed out to the national park again. The kids were not overly excited about coming back, but this part of the trip was not about them. Jennifer and I wanted to see the Grand Canyon, so this was our little excursion of the trip.

Our kids are usually better at taking our picture than random people that we find and ask. Works out pretty good.

To help get rid of some of the kids excess energy we hiked part of the south rim paved trail so that the kids would sit still later in the day when we were driving to our next destination.

Besides the kids being our awesome photographers we have also put to use quite a bit the function on our apple watches that allow us to take pictures on our phones. Just prop the phone up and then hit the button on my watch and then we have our own photographer.

We hiked and rode on the buses along the south rim all the way up to Hermit's Rest. 

We had packed some snacks and drinks for a little break up at Hermit's Rest.

Another family picture with the canyon in the background. You can even see the river on the right hand side.

Definitely somewhere you should go sometime in your life to just look at the beauty of it all!

Around noon we finally decided that the kids were over it and we didn't want to push our luck with not having any kids falling over the edge. We hopped in the car and started our 4 hour drive to Las Vegas, for our last destination of the trip.

After checking in at our hotel, Circus Circus, we headed down to the strip to show the kids all of the sights and sounds. We walked almost the entire strip.

View of all the lights looking down the strip. 

Our little photographer took a picture with us in front of the Eiffel Tower.

We made a great move when we decided to take the strollers on the trip down the strip. We got a lot of weird looks and I even overheard people talking about us saying "Why would you bring your kids out to the strip'" and "Las Vegas is no place to take a kid'" We made it back to the car at midnight, so I can kinda see their point, but hey we were on vacation! Also, I would have loved to hear what they would say if they knew that it was really 3 am in our time zone.

The next day just happened to be Father's Day. We were trying to figure out exactly what all we wanted to do, but top on the list was playing in the hotel pool. We could see it out of our window and it was all the kids could talk about.

Landon was excited about the play area. However, this morning, the water at the splash pad  was freezing.

Brinley was talk enough for the water slides. We went down about 4 or 5 times and she loved it. 

The last time we were in Las Vegas I had discovered that they had my favorite restaurant of all time, Giordano's! So, when they asked me what I wanted to do for Father's Day this was tops on my list. It did not disappoint!

Jennifer and the kids with the Eiffel Tower replica.

While we were out in Las Vegas last November we went to see the Nathan Burton magic show. At the time I thought the kids would like it. So, we bought tickets and went to see it again. The kids thought it was really cool.

We stopped at the Carlos Bakery Las Vegas location for a little sweet treat. I got this cannoli and asked them to put a little Happy Father's Day toothpick in it.

The entrance to our hotel Circus Circus. The clown looked a little creepy, but don't all clowns look like that.

Jennifer had really wanted to take the kids to a Cirque de Soliel show while we were in Vegas. Brinley loved it and Landon slept through about 75% of the show. It was an interesting show with lots of acrobatic stunts and some funny stuff. 

You can't go to Las Vegas and not get your picture with the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. It is iconic. There was some random man there with a spotlight that was helping people take pictures. He said that if you didn't use a spotlight then you wouldn't get a good picture. He snapped this picture of us.

We stopped at Top Golf  to play for a while before our flight. Apparently Monday morning is an extremely busy morning. The wait was over an hour long. We thought about waiting and even played a couple games of shuffle board. After a little while I decided that it wasn't worth missing a flight to play. Jennifer said we could go sometime in Cincinnati which sounded fine with me.

Instead we took the kids to get a picture with the back of the Las Vegas sign.

Back to the airport to wait for our flight home. The kids loved the moving walkways at the airports.

Vacations are fun, but it is always nice to head home!

We missed out on getting our wings on our flight out west, so I was sure to ask early for some wings on our way back home. A little side perk was that the wings came in a little goody bag with all kinds of snacks. The kids were so excited about getting their wings!

Landon was again my seat partner. I just love this picture because Landon is looking up to me like I am the greatest thing in this world. I just hope this little guy always knows how much I love him and his sister. They mean so much to me.

Our trip out west was full of fun and adventure. We packed an awful lot into the 12 days. Brinley said her favorite thing was the San Diego Zoo and Landon said his favorite thing was Legoland. I would highly recommend going out west sometime if you ever get a chance. I know that there are so many other things out west that I would like to see sometime, so we might just have to take another trip out there sometime. Maybe next time I can talk Jennifer into driving out there. Thanks for reading and God bless!