We will not be visiting Cleveland again

The Idea: Help out a friend taking his boards by getting a cavity filled for free, and do something super fun to celebrate me turning the big 2-5.

The Plan: Drive to Cleveland on Friday, stay overnight in a free hotel, get my tooth fixed, and then eat out, explore the city, tour a chocolate factory, see Lake Erie, maybe go on a hike and visit the Museum of Art and party until we are exhausted at which point we will head back to Columbus.

The Execution: Let's just say that nothing really went according to plan....We did leave on Friday afternoon but the A/C in our car broke a few days ago and it was HOT. We gave the kids a bag of ice to play with to keep them cool and somehow made it on the 2 1/2 hour drive. We made an unscheduled stop along the way to visit Grandpa's Cheesebarn where Kaylee and McKenna made a new friend

Our hotel room was really nice and McKenna didn't waste any time getting comfortable on the big bed.

 

 We ate dinner and then headed out to explore the city. Overall I am not a fan of Cleveland. It felt like a run down version of Las Vegas without any of the flashy lights to distract you from how nasty it is. It just felt DIRTY everywhere (in fact, when we got inside Kaylee had random black streaks everywhere from touching things. YUCK).  Everything was pretty ghetto and rundown, and everyone stared at us like we had two heads instead of two kids. We were quite the novelty- a little suburban family walking around downtown Cleveland with our double stroller. We walked around for a while and saw some pretty cool sights

 

 

The longer we walked, the more grumpy Kaylee got and I thought she was just tired. However, she threw up in her mouth and when I felt her forehead I could tell she had a fever. So we hurried back to the hotel and tried to get everyone to bed. I knew Kaylee would have a hard time falling asleep in the hotel because we didn't have a crib for her but we were counting on her staying asleep once she fell asleep. And she probably would have if she hadn't gotten so sick. She had a high fever and couldn't breathe and was just miserable. She couldn't sleep, which means none of us were sleeping and Richard finally made a 2:00 am run to Walmart to get her some medicine, which only worked for two hours until she woke up again... We were planning on starting on the fun activities first thing in the morning but instead spent the morning watching movies while the kids finally got some sleep. I headed off to get my cavity filled while Richard took the kids to a nearby mall where McKenna cried for most of the 3 hours I was gone. By the time he picked me up, all of us were exhausted and feeling so crappy that we decided to just forget about my birthday and get home. Kenna screamed for at least the first 30 mins and we stopped multiple times to try to calm her down before she gave up and finally fell asleep. By the time we got home it was almost bedtime and we had a really hard time getting the kids to bed. On top of everything else, my throat was swollen and hurt so bad that even though everyone in my family called to wish me a happy birthday, I couldn't talk to any of them because it hurt too much to talk. I was almost in tears because it was such an awful birthday. Luckily, Richard ran to the store to get me some cake and ice cream and we sat outside to watch the full moon and then ended the night cuddling and watching a movie. At least my night ended the right way but I think this might go down as my worst birthday ever. We will definitely have to have a makeup day and do something fun because we can't just leave my 25th birthday like this. Who would have thought that Grandpa's Cheesebarn would be the highlight of our trip?!? :) Needless to say, we will not be visiting Cleveland again anytime soon.