Family is here - Saturday, June 23

My dad, step-mom, niece and nephew flew in on Saturday. We met them at the airport, and Taipan was a bit shy at first. We rode the shuttle bus to the rental car hub, and the entire time Taipan had his head buried in my chest. Once we got to a place where he could run around with his cousins he started to warm up. It's very good to see them all, and we're so happy that they were all able to come to Ohio this week. We have lots of fun stuff planned, which I'll blog about of course.

After the rental car was rented and the hotel was checked into (they're staying at a Hampton Inn, which is very nice!), we headed over to the Brecksville Home Days.



Of course Taipan was jazzed about the rides, but we got surprised because he wanted to ride one of the bigger thrill rides called The Sizzler.

At first he watched Elyse and Grandpa ride the Sizzler,



then the kids and I rode a low-key spinning pumpkin ride,



and we hung out a bit and watched some other rides. Then when it was getting close to time to get dinner Taipan told us that he wanted to ride something. "Ok," I said, "let's go look and see what you want to ride." And we looked at the pumpkins again, and some kiddie helicopters, and a kiddie coaster that my nephew had ridden a coupe of times, but Taipan was not interested. He took me to the sizzler and said "I want to ride that." So we asked the operator if Taipan was big enough and he said that Taipan could ride as long as he had an adult with him. So we went to find Yuta :-) Actually, I offered to ride it, but Taisim was upset from a bad pumpkin experience (older kids were on the ride with her, Grandma, Elyse & Jason, and they made the ride spin super fast, and Taisim was very scared and upset), so I took her to calm her down while Yuta, Elyse and Taipan went to ride the Sizzler. Yuta's not big on flat (spin-n-puke) rides, but figured he could stand it for three minutes to take the kids on the ride.



Maybe Yuta will post about the ride itself, but from where I watched, Taipan looked, um, concerned the entire ride. He had his head buried in Yuta's armpit, but his eyes were open because I'd see them peeking out every now and again. I guess he told Yuta he wanted the ride to stop, and fortunately it was right as the ride was stopping. When they got off Taipan wanted to be carried for a bit, and I can't blame him.



After that we headed to get some food, listened to music, and took a slow walk back to the van. On the way back to the van we stopped at a booth where Taipan got a Tootsie Pop - his first one. He opened it and inspected it for a while, then dropped it, and it cracked, so he got another one. He ate a tiny bit of it before he decided he was done. Ah, his first lollipop.



The kids also got balloon animals, except they weren't really animals. But Taisim had a blast with hers while it lasted. I think it was originally made up of six or seven balloons, and half of them popped before we even made it to the van.





As an aside - when I googled for a picture of The Sizzler, I found this site. Lots of scary stuff that will make you very paranoid about going on carnival rides. Or roller coasters in Europe. I'm glad I didn't see that before the carnival. Only go there if you want to read lots of sad stories.