Cincinnati recap

tuesday morning we got up, ate a quick breakfast, packed ourselves in the car, and hit the road heading to cincinnati to visit my old friend nicole and to go shopping at ikea. the trip there was uneventful and thank the Lord olive fell asleep for a suitable length of time! on the way there we stopped at burger king (we had coupons) and got lunch. i had awoken that morning feeling sort of ick but i got half way through my chicken sandwich and found myself sweating and clutching my stomach hanging over the toilet in the bathroom. i did not end up "uneating" my sandwich but just ew. that feeling is so so awful am i right?

meanwhile david had put the children back in the car and he asked if i was alright then told me he felt sick too now! d'oh! literally we are within eyesight of ikea and we start questioning whether to go or not. so we agree to just sprint through the whole store and not dilly dally. we drove 1 1/2 hrs and darn it i'm getting my retail therapy! i quickly grab a map of the store in case one or more of us feels like we need to upchuck, need to know where those bathrooms are. we had a small list of things to purchase: new chaircovers to replace the ripped one, a table (red) and chairs (green) for the kids for christmas, pillow inserts, baby duvet and pillow inserts for owl bedding olive has (from allison!), hot pad holders (as somehow mine have stepped into a wormhole somewhere in my apartment), and a side table to match our bed because the table we have now is missing a leg. oh and my dear friend patti wanted us to pick up a chest of drawers for her boys. we actually did not deviate like i thought i would. the only thing i got that was not on the list was a bunny for augustine and wrapping paper. which really was too delightful and cheap not to get.

(sidebar: any name suggestions for the bunny? i suck at naming things besides my own children. olive has three dolls and only one had a name until last week! no lame names like Hopper or Peter please.)

so then we needed to decide whether or not we were going to nicole's home to, in my mind at least, possibly infect her and evan with some horrid stomach bug which it seems a lot of my friends have had lately. augustine who, TMI! had explosive diarrhea twice in ikea was chipper as a daisy and begged me to stay the night at nicole's and that he felt fine. so i relented, as by this point i was the only one feeling queasy still and even that had given way mostly to just fatigue. the problem was that nicole and evan were still at work since we had run so quickly through ikea. so we went to a park near their house for an hour. did i mention it was 91 out? and the park was full sun? and i had a dark navy shirt on? and i felt sick? so lemonade from scorching hot lemons was made and there happened to be a water fountain there that david turned into a sprinkler by pressing on the valve with his finger while it was on. i got soak through twice and was still dry as a bone when we showed up on their doorstep, for real.

it was so nice staying with them. we had a fantastic dinner from some pizza place called Dewey's. best salad! i tried recreating it at home, FAIL. we told stories and laughed, my kids chased their cats and we sat outside looking at the garden and watching for bats at twilight. it was so fun!

also, i think im getting a new tattoo but can't pick between two ideas.