"Cinci"

Slowly, i'm checking off visiting the 50 states. This weekend we did 4 states in 4 days. Thursday we left Illinois, drove through Indiana (playing freeze tag at the state line pit stop) stayed in Ohio and visited Kentucky. We both just said to each other, "did you ever think you'd go to Kentucky in your lifetime?"

I admit I was very afraid to make this drive alone. It was 283 miles-thats 4.5 hours folks and I am no driver. I just get SO tired behind the wheel and I am constantly worrying about people texting or cellphone talking or getting dozy and then hitting us. Among a gazillion of things I love about that Brad of mine, I am SO glad he never makes me drive. But, we had to get there to see this cute face:

MY BRAD (standing in his somewhat bleak apartment, but thanks to that apartment we were all able to stay for 3 nights rather than the one we would've been able to afford had we had to get a hotel so yay for the apartment.

Crossing this impressive walking bridge from Cincinnati, Ohio to Newport, Kentucky
I could spend ALOT of time at this place if we end up here. It's this old train terminal turned into a museum center. The structure was magnificent.
He started crawling this weekend...just for dad! Poor kid has a constant bruise on his head now.
The city of Cincinnati behind us. We did it "all". We had the spaghetti with chili on top and a pound of cheese (really!) Skyline cafe was a pleasant surprise and way cheap. Next, we had to try a White Castle burger. Pretty low on my list but it was a 62 cent experience. No trip for the Chambers is complete without sampling the local fare of icecream. There's is known as Graeter's and we indulged. My it was good. It was homemade softish icecream on a cone. In Kentucky we decided we needed to check out what a real horserace was like. We missed the race by minutes but we did see the impressive track. I'm not a die-hard horse person by any stretch but it really was grand seeing that track. If we go back to Cincinnati for residency I will definitely have to see a race.
So thanks to my awesome museum pass my Brad bought for us we've been able to sample children's museums far and wide. Cincinnati's gets an A+ They had a full sized tree house jungle and a whole section of musical instruments from around the world plus more. Then we walked over to the Natural History museum and we got in free (with the pass of course) and that was a pretty awesome experience, too.
The city is set up on a hill and over looks the Ohio river.

p.s. the drive really wasn't that bad. On the way there I just stopped about ever 50 miles and on the way back it just seemed faster and the kids were napping so i just went for it and surprised myself by not even getting tired.

Merlin

I want to talk about customer service.

I don't know if any of you remember, but Chloe, Ezra and I missed our flight from Portland, home to Illinois. After a fun and long trip (almost 2 months) I couldn't imagine how crappy it would be to hear the words, "you won't be flying today." So, during this super frustrating hour of figuring out what to do next, I heard the worker mention to her customer that "people just think they deserve so much these days. They just think they should be treated like royalty". Umm...yeah, if that comment was directed at me, yes, I do deserve to be treated well when 1. it was the airlines fault, and 2. I paid ALOT of money to be on this flight. So, since then i've kind of been noticing my attitude toward what kind of service I DO expect as a customer. It kind of seems like customer service has sortof gotten this huge division. It's either amazing or really lame. Does anyone agree?

I got some really really bad service a little bit ago and I felt I deserved better. Long story short, I called the manager to mention how poorly we were treated (in light of the fact we paid for service that cost upward of 100 bucks so yes, I felt like we should've been treated pretty good) I have never called on bad service before. Have any of you? I did, because the service performed wasn't even satisfactory so I thought he should know about it. Anyway, he was super appreciative and a little sad at the fact that his employee was lame so he gave us a gift card. We went back to the store...awesome service this time. I went back just the other day...bad bad bad service, like mean mean service. So, I'm just not ever going back there and they won't miss my business. Have you ever been treated so poorly that you just almost wanted to burst?

So, the other day we were at McDonalds. I was waiting in the crowded line when Merlin appeared and asked my how many straws I would need. Would I like ketchup, napkins?? He quickly returned with all of my extras, a high chair, and cookies for the kids. He then followed me to my seat and then went to pick up my order for me AND got our drinks. Merlin, you are great. So, I went and told his manager how amazing the service was and that we were treated so great. I don't expect to be treated like royalty, but man he made me FEEL like royalty and it brought a smile to all of our faces (the kids, me, the lady he helped next to me, the lady he helped behind me..)

Once when I was a working lady, I used to go to Reams in Utah and there was this awesome worker there and I actually called a radio station to have them give a "shout out" to this worker. She probably never heard it, but she deserved the praise.

And that's what I want to say about customer service. Said it.

This guy.

This guy had a birthday, shout horray! He wasn't supposed to be home until late Friday night but he surprised us at Chloe's little track meet at 530. Oh, what a great great surprise.

Life got right back to normal for a couple of days but now he's gone again.

Aren't they cute? Ezra has had THE craziest sickness ever. Remember the fever? Yep, it lasted for 4 days and he is now covered in a bright rash. The only sickness we've experienced in our house has been proceeded by seizures so this LONG illness was way different and so so so sad in different ways. He was just so different and not himself. Goodbye illness we are all very happy to see you go.

Over the birthday weekend Brad introduced this one to water balloons and "flying" balloons. Isn't she so cute.

The community puts on these $1 track meets on Friday. Each age group starting from 2-8 or so gets to run one lap around. They get a ribbon each week and the last week they got a trophy. It was a fun 30 minutes activity to look forward to. Plus, since her parents love running we figured she better like it, too!

A fun Wednesday

In reverse order:

We went to the fair. You remember this fair from last year? It was free to get in. The face painting was free, done by models from an agency, no doubt. I know this "model" tidbit because of the time we (me and brad circa 2003) worked at a fair and they hired models to work the Cream of Weber booths with us to promote a "healthy, youthful, goodlooking, milkdrinking image i suppose. Back to this fair though. We spent money on fair food, including my 2 overthe top amazing cookie icecream cone thing. I don't know what it's called but its Uh-mazing. Then I begged a family, really I begged, to sell me one of their 20 tickets for a dollar. I had to result to this because they would only sell a book of 10 at the counter for 10 bucks and I just didn't need 10 tickets when all we wanted to do was the carousel. Finally after 2 tries I got a taker.

EZ was there. Shortly after we got home he spiked a fever of 103. Thankfully no fever seizures, yet, with this little guy.

Chloe, happy as a clam on the Carousel. She really wanted to do the Ferris Wheel thanks to a Barbie book, but she was little short. She assured me that "when I'm 4, mom, i'll be taller and ready to ride alone".
Self timer infront of the fair. The balloon was also free
Swimming lessons. She passed her level and gets to move up to the next level, whatever that means, but she was so good this time with swimming.
She loves the diving board.
And after this 8th lesson, we went to the kiddie pool and she actually put her head under and swam with her legs for a few seconds. The big triumph of these lessons was hearing her tell her teacher thank you without being prompted by me. Does my heart good.
So, Monday Chloe split her head open. No stitches, just lots of ice, love, movies, and a donut. Tuesday, the airconditioning went out long enough for me to get really frustrated and hot hot hot, called brad, called landlord, then it started working again. Wednesday, Ezra spikes this fever after 3 days of lots of tears. Remember good fortune from the last post? She's out of town just like our Rock, B-rad. Brad incidentally, is having adventures of his own. he showed up to the place he was going to stay and in his words, "it looked like there was a drug-deal about to go down... I could've maybe showered in flip flops....they said they may have some parties while I was there...! Poor guy, he aborted that plan and is now staying in the suh-wheet Days Inn. He gets to come home for his birthday though. Don't forget, it's on August 7th.

Skunks

Brad left for Cincinnati today. He's been gone a couple of hours and I am sad but I know I can do it. We are a family of 3 for a little while and our 4th will be missed ALOT. But he is going to do great things and share who he is with others and he is off to make us proud so it's a good thing. We'll be in for some adventures around here.

The other day Starsky got sprayed by a skunk. That's a true story. The whole house smelled for a couple of days. We washed him...alot, and now I think he smells better. After is happened we immediately showed Chloe a picture of a skunk on the computer and told her if she ever saw one to run as fast a she could.

The day before the skunk incident I was playing sponge dodge ball at the church and somehow while throwing a wet sponge across a grassy field I lost m wedding ring. I noticed that it was gone and walked right over to where I was and thought there was no way I was going to find it in this giant field where I had been throwing wet things long distances. I found it within seconds. I was totally blessed and I am totally blessed. I consider my life a series of good fortunes. Love to you all.