Hi ho, hi ho, it's through Ohio we go went!

Annabelle and I had a wonderful weekend in Pennsylvania! The drive up was uneventful, and we stopped along the way in Ohio to have a snack with my invisible friend Patty and her kids. I have "known" Patty thanks to the wonders of the Internet for about 8 years, but this was our first time to meet in real life (IRL). It was so nice to finally meet her, and I wish we could have hung out for longer, but I still had several hours of driving time facing me, so I couldn't linger for long:



As you can probably imagine, there was a lot of squealing and jumping up and down when Katherine and Annabelle reunited. We took our Playstation and the Dance Dance Revolution game, and the girls spent a lot of the weekend "dancing" along with Katherine's little sisters.

On Saturday we went to the beach. "The beach?" you ask. Yes, the beach--the lovely shores of Lake Erie. It surprises me to no end to be saying that, since everything I ever knew about Lake Erie I learned from an old Saturday Night Live skit, and it was NOT flattering (and good grief, doesn't Bill Murray look YOUNG?!). But yes, the beach was wonderful, and the girls had a great time:



Saturday night we went to a baseball game, the Erie Seawolves versus . . . hmmmm, somebody else. Altoona, perhaps? The kids got their picture made with Mr. C. Wolf himself:



Sunday was full of shopping and more Dance Dance Revolution and supper at the Olive Garden. Then all too soon it was Monday, and we had to leave.

We stopped in Ohio again for an IRL encounter with 2 more of my previously invisible Internet friends. Again, Kim and Melanie and I have been posting on the same message board for ages and know so much about each other yet had never met before. Here we are with our girls outside Panera:




I have spent the 2 days since we got home resting up and recovering from all that driving and those late nights spent hanging out and chatting with Katherine's parents. Believe it or not, we actually outlasted the girls! It's nice to know that with just a day's drive Annabelle and Katherine can be together again.