Ohio

This last week we went to Ohio to visit Chad's family.

Zoey, Liz's dog

Dale and Liz's new house.  Their other house was getting older and expensive to maintain.  They built this one right next to it.

The old house.  It had been cleaned out and it was being salvaged by bits and pieces.  You can see that the siding and windows are missing.  Soon it will be torn down.

The guys shooting out in the pasture.

Chad and his pride and joy a S&W 1911.

Dennis and the kids.

Nathaniel, Jared and Tim.

Fishing, fishing and more fishing

Dale and Liz have a pond and we did a lot, really I mean A LOT of fishing.

Nora and a bass.  She didn't want to hold it.

Timmy and Grandma.

Dale and Tim.

Nora hooking a big one.

Timmy looking at a Bluegill on the grass.

Chad and Nathaniel

Dale and Tim.

Tim trying another form of fishing.

Tim hooking a big one with Dennis coaching.   Dennis gave Tim the nickname "Fishing machine" for catching so many fish.  On one visit to the pond Tim caught 2 fish within 3 seconds of the bait being in the water.

Nathaniel and a grassy bluegill.  Nathaniel earned the nickname "No bait Baker" for losing his bait too much.

Nora's bluegill

Nora and Dennis

I even caught one!

When the fishing was over we got out the paddleboat.

The spectators, Missy, Liz and Dale.

Tractors

Of course a visit to Ohio wouldn't be complete without riding some tractors...

Timmy even got to help Dale clean up the John Deere by blowing out the air filters.

The boys got to help Dale put fertilizer in the ground.

Ohio Caverns

While in Ohio we visited the Ohio Caverns.  It was a nice experience for the kids.  Being that we went on a Monday morning we had the tour guide all to ourselves.

This is the largest (in Ohio) stalagmite.  It had a name that I can't remember.

On this outing Tim was uncomfortable in the caverns.  About every 5 minutes he would say, "I want to leave now."  A little while later he would say "I want to be done now."  He was never clingy or wanted to hold our hands, in a deadpan voice he just told us every few minutes he was done.

Afterwords we bought some gravel to washout in the sluice.

Gemstones!  The kids just loved it!