Flyover State Tour

When you work for yourself/father-in-law, you don't get too many opportunities to travel for work.  When the random chance to head to Wisconsin came up, we jumped at it and extended it to Cleveland to make it a little family vacation.

Our route took us up through Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin to our destination in Madison.  Madison is a nice little city.  Big enough to have everything you need, small enough to actually get around.  Plus, they have fun accents.  :)

When we were driving through Iowa, I saw a sign that mentioned something about bridges in Madison County in a couple of exits.  A quick google search taught me that these were THE Bridges of Madison County, as in the movie!  So I made Brian take an hour detour.  He wasn't happy, but when are we going to be in Iowa again???

The little town (that I'd have to go back and google what it was called) was the birth place of John Wayne. I have a picture of that, on my phone. I got in trouble for using my phone to take Instagrams instead of the "fancy camera"...so I got the thing out and snapped these of the town.

And here they are, in all their glory - The Bridges of Madison County.  Brian was unimpressed.  I thought they were cute.

And a shout out to Coldplay!

While we were learning, our nanny-in-tow (aka, my mother) took the kids around to the local zoo and children's museum.  Both were a hit! (by the way, posting these pictures of the zoo are the first time I am even looking at them.)

This one cracks me up. She is reading that map, oblivious to the fact that her most favorite animal is standing right behind her!  

And I can imagine Ben yelling "Water Buffalo" the whole time. :)

 

 And here, "fingos STINK!"

So we spent 2 days in Madison, had the most fabulous meal at 8 Seasons Grille, and then headed out on our trek to Cleveland. I really wanted to stop in Chicago at the "bean" thing, but instead, we paid an extravagant amount of money in tolls and kept heading east. I did get a little stop off in South Bend, to see Notre Dame (and have our first Five Guys hamburger experience). 8 hours from Madison and we made it to Cleveland! It rained most of the time, but we did get to have some outside fun at Aunt Melissa and Uncle Angelo's new house!

  Like herding cats, man. It is impossible to take a picture of 4 toddlers. :)

Besides getting to see cousins, aunt/uncle, and Gigi, one of the main reasons of the trip was to celebrate Dominic's 2nd birthday!

How many toddlers does it take to open the birthday boy's presents? 

Don't remember why she was pouting, but it's cute. :)

The birthday boy!

We had a great time playing and we can't wait to go back and visit at Christmas!