Sugar and Spice & Everything Nice: Timber Expo 2011

Friday and Saturday we had the opportunity of attending the Timber Expo 2011 at State College, PA. This year we decided to take Ava with us since she is a little older and can somewhat handle a day without a nap. This was also a way to take Ava on an overnight trip and show her it does not always have to end with going to see a doctor. The last two hotel stays she had involved staying close to the hospital in order to see the doctor the next morning and/or get her surgery.

Stefanie only being 19 months is not able to handle a full day of activity without getting tired, which in turn leads to super cranky. She instead got the opportunity to stay with Grandma and Granddaddy. We don't like not doing things as a whole family but then again it is sometimes nice to give the kids some one-on-one attention as well. We hope that if we get to go to the timber show again next year we will all be able to go.

Friday finally arrived and Ava was beyond excited about this trip. I had to wake her Friday morning so we could hit the road. As soon as I walked into the room she sprung out of the bed. I quick got her dressed and packed the rest of her stuff. We put everything in the car, grabbed our breakfast to go and we were on the road. Several hours and several stops later...we arrived at the Expo.

Ava had the opportunity to sit up in the big pieces of equipment with her daddy. Walk around the fairgrounds and see all the stands. Take a tractor ride up to the woods to see some of the equipment being demoed. Then Ava started becoming very tired and so it was time to leave. Our hotel was about 20 minutes away...and since that is the longest she will sleep in the car...we figured it would give her the opportunity to take a power nap. She fell asleep almost immodestly and we took our time traveling to our lovely hotel.

Once at the Springhill Suites by Marriot we had awhile before dinner so we relaxed in the room watching TV until dinner time. When it was time to go out we got dressed for dinner and walked next door to the steakhouse. On our way we passed a beautiful little fish pond out in front of the hotel that was loaded with fish. We promised Ava that after dinner we would feed the fish. After a nice dinner, we grabbed a piece of bread leftover from our bread basket and headed back to the pond. Ava busily fed the fish for quite awhile and had a blast doing it.

Final activity of our busy day included getting to swim at the hotel pool. We swam in the big pool for about 25 minutes and rounded out our evening in the hot tub for the last 5 minutes. Back to the room we headed for baths and bed. What a full and wonderful day we had.

The next day Ava was exhausted from the day before. We hit the road and headed to Grandma's house to pick up Stef. Once there we discovered a very tired Stef who also had a full and exciting weekend with the grandparents. We got both tired little girls home and took it easy the rest of the day. They both were in bed and asleep at 7:30 pm and slept until 9:30 am.

Here are some pictures from our weekend.