Spring Fling

To celebrate Matt's spring break, we made a quick trip up the road to Cincinnati for the weekend, hitting the zoo, Ikea, and taking Matt to his first major league ballgame. We packed a lot of fun into two days.

After overcoming some early obstacles - one dead Toyota, one car sick child and subsequent truck cab full of vomit, and sheer incompetence at the hotel, we had a lovely time. The Cincinnati Zoo is one of my favorites - it's well laid out with lots of animal diversity and is very child friendly. It's also gorgeously landscaped.

This time of year is the "Zoo in Bloom," with over 80,000 tulips and other flowers blooming throughout the zoo. It was really quite spectacular.







We saw a lot of great animals, including zebras (Matt's favorite), fossas (Charles' favorite) and manatees (my favorite). We managed to hit the cat habitat right at feeding time, so all the animals were out and active, which was wonderful. Matt had a good time looking at the cats, some of which were Ferris sized, like the one below, and some of which were quite a bit larger.



We also saw the polar bears, who were enjoying their pool on a hot day,


and birds,


and random zoo employees wandering around with animals, including this guy with a python.


Matt wanted no part of the snake dude. In fact, the boy's favorite part of the zoo was riding the zoo shuttle around, probably because it looked like a train. Sigh. He is such a train guy.

The next day we took Matt to a major league ballgame, something we've been planning since before he was born. While it wasn't the Red Sox, it was still great. The Reds beat the Cubs in an exciting game, the weather was beautiful and our seats were amazing, right down the first base line.



Matt was excited but quickly became restless. We pacified him with food - he gorged himself on popcorn, hot dogs, ice cream, and of course, cotton candy.



Luckily the Reds park has a nice playground inside the stadium and we were able to take turns letting Matt burn off some energy on it. He mostly enjoyed the experience, although he was terrified of the mascot and wanted even less to do with him than with the snake guy at the zoo.



Overall, it was a wonderful day. We love baseball so much and really hope to impart that love to the boy.

Kitts Family Self Portrait



Great American Ballpark, Cincinnati


Good view from our seats - conference on the mound

These always remind me of that scene in Bull Durham - "candlesticks always make a nice gift."


Matt and Mommy



Hanging out with Dad


Next, we're aiming for a longer vacation this summer - stay tuned for that, and for soccer and T-ball pictures!