Weekend in Dayton

PART ONE:  The Road Trip
This past weekend we had the fun chance to head to Dayton for some family time.  Though our family is known for much longer road trips than the two hour trek to Dayton, after living on small islands for almost two years...this felt like a long one!  George fell deeply asleep on the way there. 

And on the way to the restaurant on our first night, the boys fell asleep in their standard position of holding hands. 

Holding hands continued in the hotel...George's first ever!  The boys squealed with delight and immediately crawled under the crisp white sheets to play they were sleeping.  :-)

PART TWO:  The National Air Force Museum
One of our favorite parts of Dayton is the huge National Museum of the United States Air Force located on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  This museum is so special to us with our family heritage of Air Force service.  (For Jake and Sarah, all FOUR of their parents have served in the Air Force and their step brother is currently serving and step sister is soon to follow!)  We highly recommend this amazing, free museum with so many wonderful displays dedicated to the history and heritage of American air and space innovation.  We came to the museum three years ago when Jack was just a little guy...but this time he enjoyed it much more.  Both boys were delighted to ride around in the complimentary kids carts the museum provides!

Jack was about beside himself with all of the planes to look at up close! 

Aunt Maddie came along with us...continuing our tradition from three years ago!

Jack has had a real interest in space and rockets in the past few months.  As I mentioned on another post, he likes to make rockets out of just about anything...paper towel rolls, blocks, paper rolled up.  So, when we walked into the section of the museum dedicated to rockets and missiles, he loudly exclaimed, "Amazing!!!"...receiving lots of smiles from other onlookers. 

Jack and I were able to go on a movie-motion simulator ride, too.  We "flew" along with a Navy aviator on an F-18 taking off from the USS Constellation aircraft carrier.  Jack loved every minute of it and said, "Mommy, we're flying!!" 

Along with a small model plane and some astronout freeze-dried ice cream, Jack's favorite souvenir from the museum was his "Captain Jack" wings! 

That's our boy...interested in old aircraft like his Mommy and Daddy!  (Incidentally, I didn't mean to focus so much on Jack during this museum part, but his enthusiasm was so fun to be part of.  George enjoyed it as much as a 22 month old can and Jake and Sarah remembered most of it from the last time we were there, so it wasn't as much of a novelty as it was before.)

PART THREE:  Family Time
Dayton, Ohio is an area filled with family heritage for the Meyer family.  Both sides of Josh's family have a long, long history in this area and it is always fun to drive around and see where Josh's mom and dad grew up (three blocks away from each other) and where Barb's great-grandfather built the family home that was to lived in by five generations of their family!  Josh was eager to show the kids his first home...on Beechwood Avenue. 

 We all had a great time visiting with Josh's Uncle Randy and Aunt Nancy and his cousins Mitch and Angie and their kids.  Here all those cousins, lined up from oldest to youngest....Mitch is 23 and Georgie is 22 months!  These kids all share one set of great-grandparents.  (How special it would be to see Great-grandma "Squeeze" -Charlotte- enjoying these blessings!)

 The twins, Isabelle and Owen, were perfect-sized playmates for Jack.  They are almost exactly one year older than Jack.  But it is Jake that they "latched onto" for most of the visit!

 We took a walk to a nearby park and I heard Jack sweetly turn to Owen and say, "Are you my friend?"  Owen said yes.  He even proved it by giving Jack his race car before we left! 

Georgie just had fun watching all of the older kids! (They all had fun making him smile or rubbing his hair.)

All four of our kids had a blast with their Ohio cousins and we look forward to future visits.  (In case you'd like to see a picture of our last visit together three years ago, check out our July 2009 post!)

No matter where we go...Jake seems to be a favorite with the little people!