Conner and I

continue to battle sleep issues here at home. So we hit the road to visit our friends Bridget, Dave,and Will in Pittsburgh, where we all sleep in one room. Then, Conner is perfectly happy. He loves having Daddy and Mommy close at hand. Since we have returned home, he has verbalized to Al, "I am scared that you are gone and aren't coming back." No amount of reassuring him otherwise seems to work.
August and returning to work is going to be rough. Especially, if he continues to not sleep in his own bed.

On the road again...

We hit the highways again this summer! This time, we headed to Frankenmuth, Michigan. We went to Crossroads Village and rode the train. We rode in the caboose up in the gondola, which made for an awesome sight seeing trip.
Then we hung out at the hotel, which is a chain that we are going to recommend from here on out. It was a Drury Inn. It had a hot breakfast and a dinner bar with three adult beverages per person, which was so nice.
We walked around Frankemuth and hit the outlet mall for a Croc Shop. All three Heinles have a new pair of Crocs now.
It was a nice trip, but very hot!
Wendy

Countdown is on...

Conner has never been to a movie theather to see a movie. He has watched movies here at home and he loved watching "Buzz and Woody" in the car on our recent trip to "Mommy's Ami". So this week, we are getting brave and we are taking him to see Toy Story 3 in the movie theather. He is so excited.
I have dug out his Buzz Lightyear shirt from his summer shirt collection and I picked up special Toy Story snacks to sneak in my purse for the boys to enjoy. I'll have a piece of fruit. Tuesday is our big day!
Wish us luck! To infinity and beyond! Wendy

Flag Day

We went to Medina Township this evening for a Flag Day Ceremony. Now, we didn't think that it was a ceremony. We thought that it was a concert. But Conner was a great tropper. He loved the music and watching the soldiers in the crowd.

Surprise...

I thought that my 40th birthday was DONE! I mean we had celebrated it for days. We had more birthday cake than a family should have. But Al had one final card to play.
He threw me a surprise birthday party at El Rodeo in North Olmsted. Lots of my friends were able to come and celebrate with me. It was a ton of fun and super overwhelming for me.
Wendy

We went shopping...

I love IKEA. Ever since my first trip with my friend, Meg years and years ago. This time, I didn't buy any furniture. I bought a cool reusable shopping bag. We seems to "collect" those here at the House of Heinle. We bought plates and bowls to go with the kid cups that Conner has. And we bought a bright red potty. Conner picked it out.

On our vacation, we went to see trains....

I took this information from the One-Tank Trip Blog! This is a super cool place that we visited on our vacation. Conner loved standing on his stool and watching the trains in the huge display. He also loved riding on "Thomas" and riding the "Silver Streak" train, which was a pedal train that one propelled with his hands. Conner tired out quickly on that and was assisted the rest of the way by a helpful staff member with a "pushing stick". The Children's section on this was amazing and Conner would have stayed there for a really long time just playing with the train legos and the train table. He didn't get to play on the playground, because he wasn't wearing socks, so don't forget the socks.
EnterTRAINment Junction is the brainchild of Don Oeters, a model train hobbyist, who, after a successful business career, has turned his energies toward creating a train-themed tourist destination in this Cincinnati Suburb.

What was once a huge furniture warehouse has been converted into a Disney-like structure that features several train-related attractions under one roof.

As you enter the building you find yourself in a replica of a small-town American village of the 1890’s. Old-fashioned street lights line a cobblestone street that leads to a train station. The street is lined by stores that offer train-related hobby material and food, all disguised with facades from another era.

The main attraction is the exhibition hall where the massive model train display is running. For starters the trains are all “G” Gauge, sometimes known as “Garden Trains”. Each car is about the size of a loaf of bread and the scenery, buildings, cars, trees and people are all modeled in the same scale. The display covers 25 thousand square feet which means it’s nearly the size of five NBA Basketball Courts.

There are winding aisles that wander back and forth across the display tracing the nearly two miles of tiny railroad tracks that wend their way through man-made mountains, tunnels, past rivers and lakes and beside a towering 11 foot tall waterfall. At any given time there are over 1,200 railroad cars making up some 90 trains that are running, circling the display, crossing bridges and trestles, passing through tunnels and whistling through small villages. The trains can be seen mostly at a waist-high level but they also soar up to 11 feet above the walkway in some of the mountain exhibits.