Ohio

On a few days while we were in Ohio, we drove around visiting various people. On one of those days we stopped at the cemetery where Gayle’s mother is buried and visited the spot. After taking a serious picture, the children got goofy!

We stopped to have a look at this old house and barn, built by one of Gayle’s great-great-something great-grandparents. Can you see the date at the lower right corner of the house? The date on the barn is 1901.

I took this next picture because of the juxtaposition of the old wooden shingles on the shed, with the modern building just beyond.

This is another family house; it is the one Gayle’s mother grew up in. It was brick then, but has been updated more recently. One of his cousins lives in it with his family.

We also visited our nephew’s farm. He raises meat chickens in these structures, and moves them every day.

He also moves his cattle and sheep daily.

Miss Joy was delighted to find a cat she could love on. She badly missed her cats.

Of course, we went swimming again. Miss Joy is quite the fish; she can swim well with a life jacket on.

We visited another nephew, and toured the house he has restored for his young family.

For our first weekend in Ohio, Gayle’s family all came together. On the Saturday morning, a lot of us drove to Dayton to the 2nd Street Market to have a look at it. When we parked, this colorful grain elevator caught my eye.

The first booth we came to was one of the most interesting, with a woman from Kenya selling baskets and other woven products from all over Africa.

Our nephew has a stall, where he sells grassfed meat.

The children enjoyed swimming in a neighbor’s pond several times.

One of those afternoons, the girls were at one pond while a sister-in-law and I took the boys to another pond.

Mr. Imagination was in his element!

That same day, the men worked on power-washing two houses.

One evening we took pictures. Our family felt pretty little!

On a very hot afternoon, Miss Joy spent a long time wetting the feet of one of her aunts, who loved the feel of cold water on her feet.

There was a beautiful sunset that night.

The girls got to wear their new pink dresses for the first time.

Because of the heat, all the children ended up moving into our bedroom and sleeping on the floor–we had an air conditioner!

A few times I walked with the children from my sister-in-law’s house, where we gathered, to my father-in-law’s house. I took this picture on of those times, of the house where Gayle grew up. It’s somewhat obscured by the trees, just past the barns.

We were walking across the lawn one day, on our way to visit someone, when we noticed this wasp dragging a katydid to a hole. How fun to see something like that! When we came back a couple of hours later, the hole was so well hidden we couldn’t figure out where it was.

The children’s aunt organized a campout one evening for Mr. Imagination and two of his cousins. We all joined them for a cookout by the creek.

One of the children found this butterfly on a nearby tree.

The two cousins brought their guns, and the boys all went hunting that evening. They got a few birds, but no raccoons. Here they are sighting the guns in.

Miss Joy loved playing on her aunt’s stairs. The fun thing about that is that the house used to belong to Gayle’s grandmother, and all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren did the same thing! Miss Joy made up quite the games with the stairs and bannister.

We’re home from our trip to America! I’ll share a few of the pictures we took while there, but I can’t share most of them because they include people who aren’t in our immediate family.

We had a beautiful trip over the mountains to get to Christchurch to the airport. The morning was frosty and clear, which promises a gorgeous day. We made a brief stop at an overlook with a view of the Otira Viaduct, built about 25 years ago to get the highway off a very dangerous part of the mountainside. We also stopped in Moana where Simon works, to say goodbye to him and to see the workshop.

Our first flight, from Christchurch to Auckland, was only about an hour long. Miss Joy had never flown before, and she was delighted to have a window seat. I let her borrow my phone, and she took a lot of pictures out the window. The Kaikoura Peninsula is visible in this one.

Both the long flight, from Auckland to Houston, and the last one, from Houston to Cincinnati, went smoothly. We won’t talk about the shock to our systems to land in 94*F Houston, with high humidity, or the three very long lines we had to wait in there to get to our gate. We were relieved to reach the end of our journey in the wee hours of the morning!

Mr. Imagination loved trapping kittens for his grandfather. These kittens are fed daily, but are quite wild. They like to get into the garage and make a mess, though.

The girls enjoyed playing with a tea set their aunt had for them.

A bat was discovered inside a house we spent a lot of time in. The owner of the house was aghast, but Mr. Imagination said he thought it was cute and wanted one for a pet! He enjoyed helping get it out of the house at dusk, though.

He also enjoyed riding the pedal cart his grandfather built years ago.

The children all loved playing in their aunt’s creek. They were fascinated with the raccoon tracks, since we don’t have coons.

They also found these structures by the creek, and Mr. Imagination caught a minnow.

We left Ohio to come home to New Zealand on the 24th of July. Our flight didn’t leave until evening, so we had the entire morning to finish packing—and we needed it! We had our baggage allowance pretty much maxed out, with nine pieces of checked luggage (only two weren’t big enough to pack 50 pounds into), nine carry-ons and nine personal bags. Air New Zealand has a limit of 15 pounds for a carry-on, so we had to weigh all of those, too. It took the morning to juggle things from bag to bag to get the weights right, and when we finally finished, we packed everything into the van and went to a local business to weigh them on their postage scale, since I don’t totally trust bathroom scales. Thankfully, we were fine with everything, and the job was finished by lunchtime. We ate lunch, then packed our sandwiches for the evening into our backpacks, to eat while we waited for the first plane in Cincinnati. We knew Air New Zealand would feed us—but that would be after takeoff in Houston at 10:00 at night!

I took a quick picture of everyone, just in case I needed to know, for some reason, what they were wearing on the trip. Here is Mr. Intellectual, ready to go home!

We were actually running just a little early, so my father-in-law directed us along a back route that ran beside the Ohio River. We enjoyed seeing this barge going downriver, but then he had another surprise.

He remembered the Anderson Ferry which runs across the river between Ohio and Kentucky. This ferry has been running since 1817—that’s 200 years now! He asked someone if it was easy to get to the airport from the ferry, and she said it was, so he paid the $5 fee and we got to cross on a ferry instead of a bridge! This was my first time ever to ride a ferry. We all enjoyed the quick crossing; it couldn’t have taken more than about five minutes.

In no time, it seemed, we were driving off the boat into Kentucky, where the friendly woman who had assured us that it was easy to get to the airport led us right there; she said she had to go there herself. We really enjoyed this one last adventure before going home!

A favorite toy while we were at Grandpa’s house was this go-cart. The boys even rode it to their aunt’s house several times! It was under the tree that nearly fell on Mr. Inventor, and got broken, but a cousin welded it together again.

There was a family gathering, for Gayle’s mother’s family, one Sunday afternoon, and they had borrowed this train. It was in use all afternoon; the children never got tired of riding. The men took turns driving!

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence clowning.

One of Gayle’s cousins invited us to swim with her children one day, and the boys loved it.

Little Miss was very cautious, but ended up all wet. She stayed on the steps.

When we went to the same cousin’s home for the evening, her husband offered to take anyone who wanted to up the grain elevator his family runs. Gayle and all the boys went. They were over a hundred feet above the ground here!

A highlight of the climb was seeing Grandpa’s place!

The house at the end of the catwalk is where we were for the evening.

On our last full day in Ohio, we had a picnic at a park in the nearby town. My mom and sister had come from Michigan for the weekend, and my brother and his family who live in Ohio had joined us. We had a lovely afternoon together, and on our way back to Grandpa’s for the evening we stopped to have a quick look at this double-barreled covered bridge.

I remember taking a class here as part of a field trip, some 20 years ago when I taught at the local Christian school. I’ve always loved the view out this window of the bridge!

One Saturday while we were in Ohio, almost all of Gayle’s family were together. One niece is in Africa, and a couple of other people were missing for one reason or another, but we had a good time just being together all day. In the afternoon, I let a niece use my camera, and she got some interesting pictures. I kept a number of the 100+ pictures, and then took some more in the evening myself.

This is the setup for cooking chicken for supper. They built a fire in that tire rim, and the food was put on the “table”.

Mr. Inventor with a kite.

Grandma’s flowers.

Gayle spent a lot of time that week trimming this hedge behind the house.

Apparently this sign was something Gayle helped make in Young Folks—he can’t remember what it was for. The children had fun with it.

Our old van. When we moved from Michigan to New Zealand, we drove this van to the Cincinnati airport, and Gayle’s parents drove it back to their place. At this point, it is undriveable. The back bumper actually rusted so much it fell off!

Gayle’s parents house.

Getting ready for supper.

Little Miss with a cousin.

The pinata that was the highlight of the evening for the children.

Going after the goodies! I was glad that, besides candy, there were also little toys.