We got back yesterday after a whirlwind trip to Pennsylvania this week. Conflicting interests, wanting to visit Laura & Thomas and also minimize trauma, had us limiting the visit to 3 days. Originally we planned on the 27th-29th but Alex had an appointment to keep so we delayed to the 28th-30th. We were prepared to do the long drive with Churro in the car but in the end Natalie decided to stay home because it seemed like a long time for him to be in the car with everyone and she wasn’t sure how he would react with their cats. We were going to take the van but since Nat stayed home with the dog, we took the SantaFe instead. We left around 10 on Saturday. Way on the other side of Ohio we were passing Grandpa’s Cheesebarn, which we’ve passed many times now on this route, and we’ve always said one of these days we should stop there. Well, this was the day. We stopped and spent an hour or so wandering around the cheesebarn to see what’s what. It’s a lot of cheese, that’s what, plus all the stuff that goes with cheese. And candy. We actually spent around 50 bucks in cheese and summer sausage and crackers, planning to break them out at Laura’s the next day. We got to her house around dinnertime and she had fajitas just about ready for dinner. Plus a lot of cookies and things. We watched a lot of football the rest of the day and the next, which was mostly just hanging out and playing games. We introduced them to ‘No Thanks’ and played that (and Wizard!) about constantly. Sunday we also did a painting thing, where Laura had gotten some blank canvases and Thomas sketched some Christmasy things (gnomes, reindeer) on them, and we all took one and painted it. Missy however, preferred to draw her own. So she took a blank canvas and sketched Kermit the Frog making a scrunchy face, and she painted that instead. It was a lot of fun and our works all came out pretty good. Fun time. We did presents (small stuff, but the kids all got Stanley water bottles!) and in the evening Beth and I went out for a nice dinner at the Hilton with Laura & Thomas without the kids (even had a drink!). Monday we did a bit of shopping in town (although we found most everything was closed, except the Ace hardware) and got some discounted Christmas décor. We all went out for lunch at the Eat’n Park before we hit the road again.