I have to admit, although we had a fun and sometimes action-packed trip through Ohio, I didn’t do a lot to collect photographic evidence of the many events. What I will do is share a few of our highlights along with just a handful of the photos I did manage to capture.

We started off our trip to Ohio by flying into Chicago. It was the night after my birthday and we got to do another birthday celebration dinner with my cousin and her family. She’s had a baby since we last saw her, so we loved getting to spend time with baby Ally and her older brother Tomo. Tomo cracks me up because he uses the pronoun “he” for anyone and everyone, including himself. A couple times he said, “He’s got his shoes on,” and looking around the room I found the only person with their shoes on, my mom.

I wrote a whole post about getting to go back to our home church in Ohio while we were there, if you missed that post, you either just haven’t read it or aren’t signed up for our member’s only section. I highly advise signing up here, as that’s where you can read more about the work we are doing abroad.

We also enjoyed loads + loads of family hangout time with my parents and favorite dog and cat. We went to several farms and festivals and enjoyed tons of fresh squash and seasonal apples (and their delectable cousin – apple cider!). Burke had tons of fun playing with Marley and teaching him to play like a real dog. He had a rough puppyhood until my parents adopted him, so he has pretty much been afraid of balls for the first nine years of his existence. Also, it appears that Nici is finally turning a corner in his affinity for attacking ankles/any body part that moves. I don’t think he made me bleed once the entire 2.5 weeks – success!


In addition to my immediate family, we got to visit and spend time with my Aunts and Uncle and do some catching up with them as well. We also got to visit all of my best-Midwest friends!



As always, the time flew by and went way too quickly, but I am excited to see my parents again in the spring for the arrival of Baby!