Ohio Vacation Day 3

Monday ended up being a pretty chilled out day. Stephanie had worked the night before, so she slept until lunch time. Eric, everyone agreed, is a weirdo and took the entire morning to drive to THE ONLY Totinos's Pizza plant for a tour (located an hour south of Canal W.). Totino's is owned by General Mills, and he arranged a personal tour with an employee he has talked with over the phone, but never met in person. Only GM employees are allowed inside the plant, so Eric didn't invite any of us along. He said it was totally awesome to see though. He said that viewing the machinery and elaborate conveyor belts channelled the "lego-building boy in me." So I guess it wasn't soooo weird. Except that they wouldn't show him some of the more suspicious components of the plant, such as the pepperoni mixing room. That's OK, I didn't want to know what goes in that stuff anyway :).

The girls and I spent most of the morning exploring Ryan and Stephanie's neighborhood. We had a blast, finding lots of imagination engaging "thrills." I'll post pictures, but they aren't going to be in any particular order. The summary is: one-of-a-kind hopscotch on sidewalk (Eva loves hopscotch) and long-abandoned playhouse in unkempt corner of the yard. After the kids napped, we made an excursion to a local swimming hole of sorts, where Eric and Ryan proved their manliness. We went to Rock Mill, Ohio's oldest gristmill (not sure what that really means...), an abandoned old mill on the edge of a creek and waterfall. It could be a spooky old place, but we were in a fun loving mood. The photos show the location and the BIG jump. Eric has never cliff jumped before, and I totally didn't think he'd do it this time. But he did! He just went up there, took off his shirt, and off the cliff he jumped. It was awesome. They say it's about 40 feet, so that is a real act of bravery, in my opinion (and I think I'm qualified to have an opinion!). Sadly, Eric's ears have been bothering him a little since the jump, but he's pretty sure they aren't permanently damaged. It was a rainy day and we were down in a funky hollow, so the lighting is weird on the pictures. Bear with me...The old mill is being restored currently. You can see below the mill there are some wooden forms- that's the sand next to the pool. A long ways down.... the big question looming in my mind: if I wasn't pregnant, would I have jumped? I've lost some of my youthful vigor and stupidity, being a mom and all, but do I still have the guts???? I guess we'll find out next time!

This is Eric jumping (look for blue shorts). It all happened so fast that I hardly had time to get a decent picture and the lighting was so bad....
This is Ryan's jump (look for white shorts). He took some time to work up the nerve, so I had a bit longer, but still no good picture!I was apparently totally off with my clicking finger that day, b/c I just missed the cutest half-naked, congratulatory, Danish brother hug of all time. But Ryan still looks pretty happy about the jumping and the embracing, wouldn't you say???

After jumping, we headed to Butch's Italian Cafe for dinner and ate the famed Chicken Armando (that's for all you Patenaude's out there). It was rich and satisfying, just like the rest of our day!