We had a wonderful weekend visiting Wayne in Cincinnati for his 25th birthday. I took 1/2 personal day on Friday afternoon and Jack and I got on the road by 1 pm. It was a bright, beautiful winter afternoon with clear roads...long weekend, on the way to see our boy...it was a great feeling.
We pulled into the hotel Friday night about 7:15 Cincy time. The place was packed! There was a "national super sectional" dance competition aka Dance Jam and the hotel was full of girls of all ages, accompanied by their moms. With this economy, we loved seeing how busy the hotel was and how much money these people must be spending. Seriously, the fancy costumes, hairdos, the special makeup, the personalized luggage and jackets ("{insert trendy name here}" embroidered on everything, for the mothers as well!) While riding with some of the groups in the elevators, Jack would ask how they were doing and they were happy to share their results, though we really didn't understand what they meant! There was lots of positive energy in the hotel and we enjoyed the people watching.
Shortly after we checked in, Wayne and Julie met us at the hotel for dinner. Wayne's boss and his wife live a few blocks away from the hotel and they ended up joining us, too. It was great to meet them. Everyone was in such a great mood. Dinner was awesome and relaxing and we just had to take the elevator upstairs at the end of the evening (along with 10 or more dancers and their mothers!)
On Saturday, Jack, Wayne, Julie and I went to the Mustard Club for lunch. I am not exactly sure what the Mustard Club is, but I do know that it involves German heritage, sausages, dark German beer and people in yellow shirts. It meets the 2nd Saturday of every month in a German restaurant near the University of Cincinnati campus. It kinda reminded me of our trips to Germany in EPCOT with Jack's family. Though there was not a band playing and no one was chanting"Ticki tacki ticki tacki hoy hoy hoy", a group of men did stand up and start singing what appeared to be some patriotic German song while swinging their steins of beer. After lunch, Jack and I went back to the hotel to nap, with plans to meet at Wayne's by 5 or so.
We realized on the way down to Cincinnati that we had left the Garmin GPS device in the car Sally has at school. That was a bit of problem as Cincinnati is very difficult to find your way around. Really difficult, in fact. Lots of curved streets that change names, one way streets, two major highways with similar numbers ("Do we want 71 or 75?!" with three seconds to decide). Jack and I got lost several times, even though we used the maps on our iphones, it wasn't quite as easy as having the Garmin lady talking you through it ("recalculating, please make a u-turn as soon as it is safe to do so"). We were trying to find a hardware store so Jack could fix the door to the powder room at Wayne's house. Never mind that. We ended up giving up and just went back to Wayne's and went out to dinner. Jack, Wayne and I went to a great little restaurant in Wayne's neighborhood. Later on, Julie came over to set up for a little party for Wayne. Wayne has made some really nice friends while living in Cincinnati and several of them came over to "pregame", as this generation calls it, before going out on the town. Wayne's new roommate, Nate, was out of town for the weekend, as were some of his other friends, but there was still a good turnout of fun folks.
Julie put together a nice pregame for Wayne's birthday
Oh to be young!
Jack and some of the girls
Wayne and one of his friends/coworkers, Matt
I thought maybe I could still give Wayne a piggyback ride, but wisely decided not to try it :)
On Sunday, we went to mass at Wayne's church. It is a beautiful old church (they are celebrating their 150th anniversary) that sits high up on a hill that overlooks the city. I took this picture with my phone as we drove to meet Wayne. It doesn't do it justice, but it gives you an idea...it is sticking up in the mid-left of the picture.
After mass, we were going to try and get some breakfast, but everything was packed, so we ended up at a Buffalo Wild Wings. Jack and I had never tried "B Dubs" (again, as the young and hip call it) and we liked it. We were able to watch the Illinois-Ohio State basketball game, though it was a bit painful. The Illini were coming off two big upsets of Michigan State and Wisconsin, but man, they could not make a basket for anything yesterday. We ran some errands with Wayne and then took off around 4 Cincy time. There was a winter storm warning for Cincinnati and the surrounding area and we wanted to get on the road before it hit. It was a smooth drive home, something we never take for granted.
Loved my weekend and it isn't even over yet because of Presidents Day!
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