And then it was night time. I’m not used to driving so much.

We went to Swings N Things. It’s a mini golf, arcade, cars, batting cages kinda place.

First we played mini golf. I was the only one to get a hole in one.

I also won.

Then Matthew hit some balls. I watched from a distance.

Then we went to the arcade.

And then we went to sleep.

Then we headed over to Matthew’s Mom’s house to see her, husband, brothers, grandparents, aunts, sister, nephew, friends. It was alot of family. We ate good pizza and I enjoyed the free wifi.

You know those Halloween ghosts that move and make ghostly sounds when you walk by? Well we’ve been wanting them so Matthew went into the basement and talked his mom into giving us all of them. At first they didn’t work, but with some cleaning and loving, they did. YAY!

This is Matthew’s brother, G, he is scared of the Quaker Oats man so Matthew brought him a lid of Mr. Quaker.

The family showed alot of old photos, such as this amazing one. Look who I spotted on the fridge, Wubba!

This is Matthew’s other brother, Sean. Matthew was showing him how to use a camera. These guys on the right are Max’s toys… you will soon meet Max!

This is Max. I’m in love with him.

This post is going to be picture heavy.. too my faces. We went to Jamie’s Flea Market on Saturday morning. I love flea markets and NYC doesn’t have a proper one so I was excited (sorry Brooklyn Flea, you’re really not a flea market..). It rained a little bit, but it couldn’t keep us down. I got 5 amazing things for $7! It was rows and rows of endless treasures. I think 1 out of 5 people commented to their friends on Matthew’s silver Y-3 sneakers. Those and my cloud tights were the talk of Ohio while we visited.

This is our car while we were there. It was very blue. Matthew makes up parking spaces as you can see.

Welcome to the family Pumpkin Octopus and Fozzie Bear!! We saved them! I had that actual Fozzie Bear when I was a little girl. Maybe it’s the same one! So exciting. Also, that lady is making me a cat shirt! The shirt was $5!! When she told me the price I stared at her. The Siamese shirt isn’t the one I got, but it’s one I loved. They also had amazing tiger sweatshirts, I was in love with this stand. I almost asked the woman for her email address so I can order things off her. I also got a red smiley face ring that smiles on one side and says "CHINA" on the other. It was 25 cents. And I got a make your own halloween bag, it was 50 cents!

Now a explosion of everything cute, everything I wanted. Click to enlarge.

Big Brown Bear! That is Essy’s nickname! The picture to the right made me feel like I was in Brooklyn again.

Shark Attack! If they had Ask Zandar it was totally going to be mine but they didn’t. And to the right, I will be ebaying to find something like this so I can wear it in the winter.

The cantaloupes are 2 for $1!! I can buy 8 cantaloupes for what I pay for 1 in NYC. The man to the right was playing some type of civ game on a giant monitor at the flea. He was epic.

This ends Day 1 for us… it was a long day.

Matthew was raised in Wellington and wanted to show me around, show me his past houses, etc. Unfortunately it was dark out so we couldn’t really see much. We ended up at the Wellington Rec Park which has amazing spaces and light. We’re kinda itching to do a summer photo road trip now, and will stop back here and shoot.

The W is for Wubba. The CK is for

We drove by this home that I had a baby beach/barbecue outside of it. There’s alot of it missing in the picture, such as the mini grill. I wish the family was here.

Then we went to Sheetz and I felt like I was 15 years old again. SLUSHEE!

Now in Cleveland, finally.

First the Grandpas needed to take a nap. Matthew too.

Then we visited the Raders..Grandparents, Father, Sisters, Nephew. It was nice to see everyone again. I don’t think I ever ate this much in my life and it was so delicious (but yet so much guilt eating). It was like have a cheeseburger, follow it up with a hot dog, then some pasta salad, then have some fruit salad with whip cream on, then have some key lime pie, do you want a popsicle now? It was intense. Matthew showed our work and explained what we do. If you’re an artist then you probably know the feeling of having your family not know wtf you do. Verdict on the work: Everyone likes the shoes.

Highlight of the night, Pepper! SOOO cute.

Then we went to a grocery store to buy bananas, apples and water. The store was called Village Market and I don’t think I ever met more nice people than I did in Ohio. Especially in Village Market, they were crazy nice, it blew my mind. Also, in Ohio you drive all the time. You drive to the grocery store, crazy right?

Al

In Village Market we rescued a new addition to the family, his name is Wellington the turtle. Village Market is in Wellington, OH where Matthew grew up.

We woke up at 5:30AM to catch our flight. It started out good, but ended horribly.

A friend and DS goodies at JFK Airport.

Scratched Clouds.

The Grandpas are the official traveling family members. They always fly or travel with us. We take them out and they look out the window.

And then things started to go bad. We were descending and figured we were above Cleveland (our destination). We were on a nonstop plane from NYC to Cleveland. The pilot made a announcement and it started out (I kid you not), "We have some bad news folks" – wtf. Way to break it to us that we’re going to die. Anyways, the pilot explained they were having some electrical problems and needed to have a emergency landing right away in Pittsburgh. So we landed in Pittsburgh. We sat on the plane for about 15 minutes and then were told everything was ok and we were going to be up in the air in a few. And then we waited another 45 minutes on the ground and then were told the plane would not be leaving and we had to exit the plane, I guess it’s good that we didn’t decide to fly again. And guess what, no planes go from Pittsburgh to Cleveland so they were ordering us a BUS! This was at 11:00AM. The bus was going to come at 1:00PM. And then we had to bus it to Cleveland for another 3 hours. Argh…

Everyone knows we have a thing for stuffed animals. Our home is filled with them, we sleep with them, we respect them, we love them. So usually when I find one on the street I put it in a bag, bring it home, quarantine it in the closet and then eventually bring them back to life. The 3 most recent family members were all rescued from the street or imprisoned in a store. Let’s meet them as I have pictures of everything…

This is Turtle Shell. He was wrapped in a garbage bag laying on the street. I’m pretty sure he belonged to someone who found him and was going to sell him and this probably fell out of their cart, so when we saw it, we took it and ran. He was rescued in Manhattan, 13th/8th Avenue.

This is little red bird. We entered the subway and he was a few feet from the tracks! We rescued him and rode him home (not literally, he can’t carry us). He was rescued in Manhattan, Spring Street stop.

This is Shark’s Brother. We call him Shark’s Brother, because we have Shark, his brother already. When I went to the Salvation Army and saw my son’s brother (my other son) in the toy section I was extremely happy. When I brought him home I made Matthew close his eyes and then showed him. We cheered and danced around. He was rescued from the Salvation Army in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Bedford Avenue.

So yesterday was the day! I opened the closet door and got these 3 out who were anxiously awaiting this occasion. We skipped down to the washing room and then I explained what was going to happen. This is them on the washing machine as I talked.

And then I loaded some bubble bath for them. I told Shark’s Brother to close his mouth but he was too excited to. Little Red Bird appears shocked because he is.

Then they came out and were all clean, but we had to do a quick dry so they wouldn’t get sick. I almost forgot to take the plastic yellow ring off of Little Red Bird but I remembered at the very last minute. That would not have been a good thing for a mother to forget.

OK OK! HERE IT COMES!

Here they are later that night, enjoying freedom and relaxing on the couch. They are laughing and sharing stories to each other. Turtle Shell is happy as seen by his tail that is sticking up.

THE ENDING!!

SHARK REUNION! 2009! SHARK MEETS SHARK’S BROTHER! A beautiful night to witness.