back home again . . .

We just spent an utterly fabulous month in Indiana!

We had so much fun hanging out and laughing with Randy and Sandra (Ben's parents), and I accomplished my goal of becoming comfortable calling them by their first names! Ha. Now I don't have to a) wait for them to make eye-contact with me before I start talking, b) start talking in their general direction and hope that they hear me, or c) start talking to the general public and if they don't hear me, pretend that I am/was talking to Ben. Ha!

We had a wonderful, wonderful month. I am so blessed to have married into such an amazing, sweet, kind, and loving family. I love my in-laws! :)

The first week that we were there, we had to hit up Bub's for dinner - it's everybody's favorite hamburger place! We couldn't handle going just one time, so of course we went back a few weeks later!

One night we got ice cream from Bub's and then strolled down the (Historic) Monon Trail. We also took a picture in front of this lovely . . . building.

We went "duck-pin bowling", too! Duck-pin bowling is miniature bowling, but for sure we had more than miniature fun!

One afternoon we walked around a cute outdoors artisan market. We came across a stand that was selling French pastries - including macarons, my fav! So decided to make our final stop that day the real pastry shop and enjoy macarons in all flavors.

We also hit the outlet malls one day, but took a small side trip to Zaharako's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor and Diner before shopping! What fun we did have!

This is the end of the pictures I took, but we can't forget about our favorite Indiana activity . . . or, Indianactivity, if you will. Most nights, we would pop A LOT of popcorn (I'm talking 3 . . 4. . batches) on the stove - Randy and Sandra are the popcorn masters - and enjoy it with several episodes of Coach. We laughed and laughed and had a grand old time!

Our month in Indiana was a dream and we cannot wait to visit again! :)

kings island

Well, I've been waiting until I can be funny and witty to write this blog post, but I'm putting too much pressure on myself and it's just not happenin', folks! Here's the cut-and-dry version:

Ben and I took a trip to King's Island, an amusement park near Cincinnati, on Friday! We had an absolute blast!

We rode A TON of rollercoasters, but I'll just tell you about our favorite: FIREHAWK. On this coaster, you get all strapped in to the seat and then the seat leans back and you are laying down! The rollercoaster goes up - you know - "click, click, click, click, . . . " - you can't see where you're going, all you can see is the sky. And when it starts going down the track twists over and you ride like you are flying on your stomach. It was awesome. Dreams come true on Firehawk.

Ben's eyes are closed in this picture, but you can kind of see the seats leaning backwards . .

Eyes-open-redo:

These pictures always provide a lot of laughs - zoom in and enjoy!

After 9 hours of coasters and Dip-n-Dots, we called it a (fabulous) day, but not without snapping a shot in front of "Lil' Eiffey!"

flo-rida

Ben and I just spent a wondrous week in Destin, Florida with these wonderful people!

Compared to our last beach trip, when we said "those three little words that mean so much," Ben and I were a lot more relaxed and went to bed a lot earlier, although we had just as much fun!

I also took way fewer pictures, so many thanks to sis-in-law Ashley for documenting our week!

Enjoying the beach and some good beach "reads."

Girls Night Out! Outlet shopping and chocolate!

Brr!

Our classic beach picture, this time as husband and wife!

Kylene, my adorable niece, and Connor, one of my handsome nephews. We enjoyed some good splashes in the pool together.

Yay for family vacation with the best in-laws ever!! :)

thirty-one cents

We are staying with Ben's parents in Indiana this month and we are currently on vacation with all of the family in Florida, but I wanted to share this funny story from a few weeks ago . . .

Baskin Robbins has advertised a 31 cent scoop night, so even though Ben and I were completely stuffed on the Van Noys’ specialty Neapolitan milkshakes after our farewell party, we decided to stop by to take advantage of the great deal and put the ice cream in our refrigerator for the next night. Unfortunately, when it was our time to order, we discovered that the special deal doesn’t start until next Wednesday. Oops. We said we would come back another time. However, the best part of the trip was that Sonora, a girl who works there who knows us by name and who always gives us extra large scoops, started heating chocolate right when she saw us walking in. She knows that Ben love chocolate-dipped waffle cones and bowls, so she started making one for him before I even ordered one. Now that is what I call customer service!

We passed a Baskin Robbins on the real 31 cent scoop night last week in Carmel and, of course, enjoyed!