Our vacation (part three)

Ok, so the post you've all been waiting for...NOT.

We drove all day Thursday in order to get into Dayton, have a good night's rest and get up refreshed (HA!) for our night out with the A-Team. Good plan in theory, but it didn't quite work out that way.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn by the Dayton Mall. It's a nice hotel and all, but we had one of the rooms that overlooked the indoor pool. It would have been nicer had there not been about 20 kids in the pool, all screaming at the top of their lungs until all hours of the night. GRAH! We got a couple hours of sleep, but we were woken up in the morning by the cleaning staff who happened to have their supply room right outside our door. I figured it would be noisy, but they were all carrying on and yelling at each other over the noise of the vacuum cleaners. I'm sorry, but who vacuums at 6:30am?! I sent Josh downstairs to complain and we got a new room for the next three nights...but he didn't ask them to do something about that night's charge. When I heard that, I went down to the front desk and they ended up taking 50% off that night's charge. Woo!

Anyways, the weather that day was INCREDIBLY hot and sticky so I decided to get my hair done so I wouldn't look like Captain Caveman. My hair has a horrible tendency to poof out in the hot and humid weather. I told the hairdresser to make my hair manageable but with some bounce and volume to it. It didn't quite work out that way though. Apparently, to her, that meant to make my hair stick straight...it was really bad, but I had already wasted close to an hour and didn't want her to damage it further. We walked around the mall a bit more and then went back to the hotel to get changed for dinner.

We got to P.F. Chang's and everyone was already there, except for Krista. We all hugged and it was like meeting old friends...except it was for the first time. We ordered our appetizers and our drinks and started talking...and talking...and talking. I was really struck by how incredibly warm and genuine everyone was. I know I mention this a lot, but every time we meet a new member of the A-Team, it's like meeting up with a long lost friend. I'm so thankful for having the opportunity to meet people like this.

After our appetizers, we ordered our mains but they seemed to take forever. So while we waited, we exchanged gifts. Josh and I (and Little Maple) were showered with gifts from the Ohio A-Team.

From Sam and Andy we got a little Nemo fish (since her blog is called 'Just Keep Swimming') and a beautiful taggie blanket that she made. From Robin and Marty we got a corker bow that she made, and I can't wait to have our "Little Maple" wear it. From Connie we received a Canadian maple leaf on a beautiful stand (the picture doesn't really do it justice), and from Krista we got a "family" picture frame with a Canadian flag already in it...too cute. :)

After dinner, and Connie's little horse-climbing incident (which I think she posted on her blog), we said our adieus and called it a night.

The next day we met up with Sam, Andy, Cullen and Kieren as well as Sam's sister Heather and her son Ian. We spent about three hours walking around Wright Patterson Air Force Base and Museum, what a place! Heather was giving us a great synopsis of the different planes and Josh was thoroughly enthralled...he loves that kind of thing. ;)

Kieren was a sweetheart, she was a bit shy at first and had a few meltdowns, but otherwise she was great! She even came out of her shell enough that she walked up to me and started holding my hand. I swear I'm in love with that child. Cullen and Andy showed up near the end of our walkabout and we all headed out for lunch and had a great time...even though the service left a little to be desired.

On Sunday we headed over to Robin and Marty's for a BBQ and some much needed imbibing. I think Marty missed his calling in life...he should have been a bartender...seriously. He makes THE best margaritas, martinis and mojitos. *drool*

It was also our 11th anniversary on Sunday but we didn't tell anyone about it...we didn't want anyone to feel obligated to do anything. We couldn't have celebrated it any better than to be surrounded with friends, drinks and food.

*sigh* I miss them all.