oHIo!

Only the night of July 7, with the help of some careful planning by my mother in law Cindy, our good friends Cami and Devin, and COUNTLESS suggestions from friends at work for MONTHS, I successfully kidnapped my husband and pulled off the SURPRISE of the year. I took him to Ohio without him having ANY idea until we were at the airport. We had a red eye flight at 12:50am MST and arrived at the Canton/Akron airport at about 9:30 EST on Wednesday morning. First order of business was to wish Cindy good luck on her last section of her CPA exam that so far she has been ROCKING (my mother in law is AMAZING). THEN we took a well needed/deserved nap while Dennis headed back to the office to work. When we woke up he came and picked us up and we went to eat at CiCi's Pizza. They have them out here (I think) but they are a lot like GodFathers Pizza (any Etown people involved in any activities that took them to Laramie is probably ALL to familiar with that establishment). A little after we got there Cindy had finished her test and met us there as well. We then went golfing. It was a lot of fun. We played best ball, well Cindy and I did, the boys were playing on their own, and although my ball was almost never used (notice you can still see my ball in the picture after I have already CLEARLY swung...yes I'm pretty much awesome... ;) ), we had a lot of fun!

The next day Cindy had to work and Dennis went in for a couple hours while we got to sleep in (so nice). We called him when we woke up and we went to breakfast at the World Famous WAFFLE HOUSE. It really was some pretty dang good waffles! Then we went on a tour of the University of Akron. In case you haven't met or know my father in law, his name is Dennis Mitchell... He's "kind of a big deal." He's created himself quite the Legacy at the University of Akron with Track and Field. He has also been to a number of Olympics as the USA Track and Field head coach. He's so awesome, I'm very proud he is my father in law.

(i love this shirt...Makes me want to go to school there...)
Dennis's Indoor track field house. Referred to by Matt as his dad's "baby." It's NICE...



Friday morning we got up and went to a park to take family pictures. We took them ourselves with a tripod and a timer on the camera set. I must say they turned out PRETTY DANG GOOD... I especially love how you can see how beautiful and GREEN Ohio is.










After Family pictures we changed into our swimsuits and headed to Mosquito Lake. It was a lot of fun just goofing off on wave runners for awhile.



We switched things up and put the boys on a wave runner and the girls on the other.

Dennis instantly gunned it and Chad and Matt flew off the back. Cindy and I couldn't stop laughing...
Neither could Dennis...This is the close up of the previous picture...he's getting them back for all the crap they did to him when they were kids. haha. I just love how big his smile was.


On Saturday we loaded up Cindy and Chad's car with Cindy, Dennis, Chad, Lauren, Josh, Nicole, Matt and I and made our way to Cedar Point. I love this place! I LOVE Roller Coasters, and Cedar Point has some of the BEST! I can't wait to take my dad out there because he shares my love for the thrills! On the way there, there was a HUGE rainstorm. Well apparently its the norm out there, so if I were an Ohioan I would just say "it rained" but I'm from dry old Wyoming and it was CRAZY! Cindy's wipers were going as fast as the could and you could still not see at all. Chad's car stalled on the freeway because of all the water on the FREEWAY. And we pulled of into a town right before Cedar Point as to not get to far ahead of Chad and to get Matt some allergy pills and the streets were pretty much shallow rivers...like 5-6 inches of standing water... I tried, but this picture does not do it justice...
But the minute we pulled into Cedar Point it all cleared up and it was a BEAUTIFUL day with not as many people there because of the storm! Our longest wait for a BIG COASTER was only about 45 minutes (usually about 1.5 hours) which was unheard of on a Saturday in the summer there...it was awesome!

Chad's tongue matched his jacket. haha
In the line...
Matt's neck was hurting from...playing volleyball at the family reunion, so he had what I called "neck turrets" so we tried making him a neck brace.
Millennium Force at dusk
The Maverick at Sunset
Seriously....Go check out CedarPoint.com and let us know when you wanna go, we'll gladly accompany anyone on the trip out there. My favorite rides there were Millennium Force, The Maverick, Top Thrill Dragster and MaxAir. GO CHECK THEM OUT!

We went on a walk/run on the route Matt used to take on his runs when he lived at home. We came to this railroad crossing and I just HAD to have a picture, so on our way to the airport we made a pitstop to take a few pictures.
And we got lucky enough to actually have a train go by. He was NOT HAPPY with us...I don't know why, we were behind the line we had to be behind but he just kept BLARING his horn...It hurt my ears.
Well the flights home took longer than expected. When we got to Atlanta there was a huge storm that was preventing people from landing at ATL, and from the quick google search i just did, it prevented NASA from launching the Spaceship, Endeavor, as well. Well we were on a small plane that needed to refuel, so we landed in Augusta Georgia. I think the office building I work in at Central Utah Clinic is bigger than the airport there, and there were MANY planes that landed there trying to get to Atlanta. There was one plane that had been delayed so long that either the airline, the airport or just some nice worker went and bought Pizza for all the passengers, but there ended up being a lot of leftovers, so almost the whole airport got a piece of pizza. Can you say Southern Hospitality? I thought it was very nice of them. (There was only one snack bar in the airport that they had to call the lady to come back to work and open it because she had closed before this whole fiasco..) Well we finally got in the air but about halfway to Atlanta our connecting flight to SLC was ok'ed to depart. So we get to ATL at about 12:50AM and we came into concourse D and had to be to the Transportation part of the airport to get out hotel shuttle at 1:ooAM and it was HUMID...We ran the whole way, but made it in time. We finally got to rest, but we were still unsure when we would actually make it home. Matt was on the phone with Delta trying to get us set up for a connecting flight and the only one we were sure to have seats on was a 9:00PM flight on Monday, but we would just be on standby all day until then just in case. Well we totally lucked out and BOTH got on the first flight out of there at about 10:00AM EST, and not only that we got to sit next to each other! We FINALLY got home to Salt lake at about 1:00PM MST...Sleep deprived and Jet Lagged...this is Matt taking his nap when we got home.... I thought it was hilarious...
So there you have it! Our Ohio Adventure!