Hot weekend...and Mind-Blowing Nostalgia

Coney Island went well. MAN it was hot. Cincinnati hasn't had as many hot and humid days as usual so far this year, but this weekend was certainly miserable. Anyway, we went to Sunlite Pool first (Steph makes fun of me for calling it that - I'm not a Cincy native so there are still some subtleties I don't get...but it technically really is called Sunlite Pool). Anyway again...For the non-Cincinnati folks, it's the world's largest recirculating swimming pool. Look for it on Google Earth - very cool. Steph managed to get us a spot under a nice shady tree, and we managed to keep the girls amused in the shallow end for over 2 hours in the hot sun. Hauled back to the picnic area for our lunch and then did rides. Both girls got on a Tilt-a-Whirl for the first time - and they both loved it. Since Steph gets sick on round-and-round rides, it'll be nice to have someone to go on them with me. Made it back home before dinner hot and exhausted.
We would be remiss if we didn't give a big thank you to AS for the tickets. We don't have the resources to do little things like a day at Coney any more...you helped the girls have a wonderful memory they wouldn't otherwise have had. Thanks! Keep that blog going, and let me know about the fried oranges.

Today, we had our church's young families picnic up at Woodland Mound Park, part of the Hamilton County Park District. Set up the picnic, got rained on. Finished the picinc, found out that the wet playground was NOT going to reopen after the brief rainstorm...all the employees had vanished. Not surprised. I used to work for the park district back in my college days. No one wants to work Breezy Point. SO....we played on the playground instead. Another hot, humid day, another set of tired daughters.

In other news, Grandma S is back from Kenya. We'll get the details tomorrow but we'd assume at this point that things went well.

And so, thoughts slowly start turning towards the upcoming trip to Tennessee. Smokies and Chattanooga. This summer's "big trip" and the last hurrah before it's time to settle back down and get ready for school to start up again.

But what's really on my mind now is this:

This was our last trip to the Smokies, in Spring of 2005.
Wow.
Just look at that. One kid. Faith is barely a year old. No Mari. Twins? Don't make us laugh. Simpler times.
In a little over a week, we will gather again, in what I think is a pretty common tradition for a lot of people - another family photo at that National Park sign. Grandma or Zayde will snap another picture. At the end of that day, I'll upload both pics so we can look at them side-by-side. And I will stop and think...

What will the next picture we take here look like?

[contemplative silence]

We hope you'll all still be around to find out.

That's all for now...
Matt