The kids have been counting down the days that their cousins would be here to they finally made it, so we can stop scratching off days on our calendar :) The first day they were here it was pretty rainy so we went down to Cincinnati the the Children's Museum. It was so fun. the kids have fun crawling through "the Jungle", playing with all the balls and tubes, playing at the water station where there were water wheels, pulleys and buckets to haul water up with, cooking at the diner and building at the block and lego station. I think the kids really had a fun time. The adults were definitely tired and we didn't even play as much as they did :)

There were so many neat pictures Jamie took of all the great formations that have taken years and years to be created. There were a ton of stalagtites and stalagmites. There was a lot of water dripping from overhead forming a pool at the bottom. They have so many tours of this cave. There is one which is just a crawling tour where there are very tight spots to get through with a time frame of about six hours! Yikes! There also was a boat tour where you had to take a boat to a different entrance to get into the cave. I can't even begin to think how bid this cave is! It was definitely worth the four hour drive!

The place here with all the people is called Grand Central Station. There are many entrances to the cave that lead down into this one spot that opens up for a huge number of people to meet. These pictures just show how big this cave is! We are down about 250 feet in the ground. I was surprised that the kids weren't nervous at all. In fact I wished I had reigns for Ireland to keep her from running over the ledge. They all loved it!

We had to take a bus to the entrance of the cave. We all had to go single file into the very narrow, steep corridor of the entrance. It felt so good in there! Nice and cool! They had lights through the whole thing so it was never too dark.

While we were waiting for our tour of the cave to start, we were driving around and saw this great rock shop. We stopped and looked at all their rocks. They ranged in price from a couple of dollars to a couple thousand dollars! We definitely did not let the kids touch those! They each got a bag of rocks which they were thrilled about. Aedan had already gotten a bag of rocks from somewhere, so he chose a jade to add to his collection. This sign was hanging up at the shop. Jamie had to get a picture :)

We decided to take the kids to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky for a big day trip over Memorial weekend. It took about four hours to get there. We stopped about half way to have drinks and snacks. The kids are always great with road trips, but it was good to get out, have some snacks and play a quick game of tag at the rest stop. When we were almost at the caves we noticed a big dinosaur museum. Well it wasn't too hard to notice since they had huge dinosaurs at the edge of the street. The kids got their picture taken by one. They were all trying too look fierce :)

Harrison had a great field day. They had so many games planned and the weather was great. I was able to volunteer. I was excited because I thought I would get to go around with Harrison and his group....nope :) They put me in charge of the bathroom breaks :) I had a laugh about it, but I enjoyed being able to see all of Harrison's friends and Harrison too.

The second graders this year at Aedan's school had a trade fair. The kids had to think of an item that they wanted to make and trade with the other students. They had to come up with a business plan, why they thought people might need/want their product. They also had a budget to stick to - $5. So Aedan wanted to make Panther Paw name plates. Springboro's mascot is the panther and their colors are blue and white. Aedan, along with the help of Jamie, used the router to carve out the name. He sanded it and then spray painted the wood blue. He hand painted a couple of paws on the plates. He was pretty proud of his accomplishment and was very excited to see that everyone wanted to trade with him at the trade fair :) Good job Aedan!