A few months ago, my Dad and Mom offered their grand parenting services so that Theo and I could get away for 24 hours. We took them up on it and planned a date! Unfortunately, a couple things changed and we ended up having to switch dates and locations, but that was FINE! We were kid-free for 24 hours!
We wanted to get away, but stay somewhere fairly close so we wouldn’t have to waste precious time driving far away. We settled on Cincinnati because it’s only an hour away and has lots of everything!
We had found out just a few days before that we were expecting our little surprise baby, so I was kind of still reeling and in a bit of a fog. I was also feeling terrible and that was the worst. The last time Theo and I had a night without kids was when I was pregnant with Kiah…two years ago. I was pretty disappointed that I was feeling so gross on our one and only night away!
We stayed at a hotel about 20 minutes outside of Cincinnati, and we enjoyed the stay. There were a few things that were kind of strange and the hot water did not get hot, so I give it 3.5 stars, but it met our needs perfectly fine and the price was right around $100 so we will not complain about little things when it was well within our budget!
We stopped at the hotel first, then headed to downtown Cincy to find something to eat. We decided to walk across the Purple People Bridge into Newport, Kentucky to find some food to eat. It was a GORGEOUS 75 degree day and the perfect weather for a walk across the bridge.
We wandered into Newport and struggled to find a place to eat. There were a few options, but none seemed appetizing to me. We almost chose a fish place, but I wasn’t sure if I could stomach the smell so we ended up choosing a restaurant and not really loving it. We managed to be seated next to a very boisterous birthday party who took a billion selfies with their phone cameras practically hanging over our table. It was loud, the food took forever, we saw our server only twice (when she took our order and when she dropped it off), and I wondered if the restaurant was a Hooters wanna-be based on the uniform that all the girls were obviously required to wear (not the male servers, mind you). Anyways, it was not the right environment for what we needed so we got out of there as soon as possible and headed back over the bridge.
We went straight back to the hotel and crashed for the night, watched some TV and went to bed.
We slept in a bit, got some breakfast at the hotel and then headed back into Cincinnati. We wanted to spend the whole day exploring but also knew that I had my limits (and they already weren’t stretching far beyond breakfast). It also was supposed to rain all day, so we knew that might change some plans. We decided to head to Findley Market and we both LOVED it.
The trees were FINALLY in bloom! It took a few more weeks for the blooms to come to Dayton!
I loved seeing some of the murals in downtown Cincy!
It started to downpour, so we all ducked inside and it was crowded!
Findley market reminded me of the rest of the world. All kinds of sights and sounds and smells and exotic things.
Look at all that bacon!
Veggies!
Plants!
Us! After walking all around Findley Market I was done for the day. Just done. We needed lunch but I was just dragging and wanted to climb into my bed at home. It was raining and so we ducked into a restaurant that appeared to have no name- we just wanted to see what it was. We were whisked immediately to a table and seated when we found out that the restaurant sells Pho. I had no idea what that was, but my life is forever changed.
Nothing, literally nothing I’ve had in all three of my pregnancies tasted as good as that broth. I didn’t even care for the meat or the noodles but THAT BROTH.
One other thing that I really wanted to do before heading home was hit up Jungle Jims. Jungle Jims is a store that sells food from all over the world. They have different sections dedicated to different regions of the world and it’s so much fun to look around and remember different things that we have tasted from different places.
They had a whole shelf of bug food- bug lollipops, bug candies, bug chips, and just plain bugs.
Next we stopped at the fruit section and laughed at all the different kinds of fruit- this one was called Ugli Fruit! Ha!
We had fun reminiscing and sharing some of our adventures around the world (Theo has been to 16 countries and I’ve been to 15!)
We bought some guavas, saw some ostrich eggs for $70 a piece, browsed the aisles and then headed home.
24 hours in Cincinnati was a lot of fun! Next time, let’s do it without morning sickness in tow!
It sounds like you had a good time despite feeling icky most of the time. :/ You mentioned the Ostrich eggs, and it reminded me of eating Emu eggs when I was younger. We knew some Emu farmers, and for a couple years we had emu meat ( that stuff is TOUGH! You really have to pound it to get it tender, but it makes THEE BEST jerky!) and eggs. My mom figured out that one emu egg equaled a dozen chicken eggs, imagine how convient that was with 8 kids to feed! So now I wonder, how much bigger than an emu egg are ostrich eggs, how many chicken eggs does an ostrich egg equal, and what color are ostrich eggs? Emu eggs are the most beautiful shade of dark green you can imagine.