What's Round on the Ends and High in the Middle?

Well, after a short 5 nights at home, we headed back out on the road on Friday.  

 (Which also happened to be National Cow Appreciation Day - thus the pic with the Chick Fil A cow.  :-)  We love some Chick Fil A.  I know they've been surrounded by some controversy lately, but we're not much on boycotting a business because of their religious beliefs (if we were, I'd have to give up my favorite nail place where they surround their Buddah with offerings and there's no way I'm going without a pedicure - if you've seen my feet, you know why - Ha! :-) so we carry on with our Chick Fil A patronage.

 This trip, we were headed to my parent's home state of Ohio.  We were on our way to my cousin's Baby shower and to see my grandfather.  We stopped in Nashville for dinner at a place called Cozymel's.  It was fantastic.

By Louisville, we were all exhausted:

So after a good night's rest in Louisville, we headed on toward Columbus.  First up though was the Cincinnati skyline:

In Columbus we went to my cousin's baby shower held at the historic Worthington Inn.  It was an Alice in Wonderland themed shower, so the tea party theme fit perfectly!

This is ML and *my* first cousin.  Seems crazy, but my mom is the oldest of 6 and her youngest sister's daughters aren't much older than ML.

After the shower, it was time to head back down to Cincy to see my grandfather, but first I wanted to stop off to see my grandparent's old house.  This was the first time I had been to Columbus since my grandmother died.  I hadn't seen the house in 9 years.

 My grandfather moved out of the house within months of my grandmother's passing.  JR was less than a month old and I couldn't return to Columbus to help my grandfather move.  In some ways, it was a blessing.  Their house lived on in my mind exactly the way it was when my grandmother was alive.

I have always loved their house.  It always felt like home.  I remember the warmth of their asphalt driveway under my feet as a child:

 It was such a novelty to me.  In the south, all our driveways were concrete.

 Good Old 2930.  My grandfather built that split rail fence.  It went so well with my grandmother's Colonial style of decor.

 The new owner had left the house untouched for all these years, but is now adding a garage in the front.

After visiting, we headed down to Cincinnati to see my grandfather for dinner:

 And after a great dinner, we headed back to Louisville for the night.  We stayed near the Summit mall and we had a great breakfast at the Starbucks there the next morning:

After a quick stop by LP field on the way,

We were finally home - on Sunday - just in time for me to pack for Big Stuf!