Cleveland Rocks!

For Father's Day, I booked an overnight in Cleveland, OH to go see an Indians Game. We planned to leave our house by 9 a.m., get to the Cleveland Zoo by 12:30 p.m., check in the hotel by 4 p.m. and head over to the game at 5 p.m.

Reality: The day started off good. We left our house at 9:15 a.m. Went to drop Marley off at Eric's parents at 9:30 a.m. Went to my parents house to pick up a double stroller at 9:40 a.m. Tried, unsuccessfully, to break into my parents house, because I thought my nephew would be there so I didn't bring the house keys at 9:50 a.m. Went back to our house to get the regular umbrella stroller at 10:05 a.m. and off we went.

The trip down was pretty uneventful. We arrived at the zoo by 1 p.m. and started our trek through the park. I did not realize how vast the Cleveland Zoo is, nor that we'd be walking 5 miles between exhibits. We saw elephants and pandas, walked another mile to see the gorillas and lemurs, walked another mile up a long ramp to see the giraffes and zebras. I started really regretting not bringing the keys to my mom's house about an hour into the trip when Matthew got tired of walking in 85+ degree weather. At one point he got onto my shoulders, because walking for miles and holding a 33 lbs toddler can be exhausting.

I complain, but the kids had such a great time that it made it all worth it.

Eric and I had two very different takes on the heat. He lost his appetite and I went into full on beast mode. I was pretty hangry by the time we checked into the hotel, and I wanted to get a nice dinner before heading to the stadium, but my husband was anxious to get to the game. He won the battle, and we got food at the stadium. Once I ate, my mood lightened and I was ready to watch The Tribe play ball.

We made it through the National Anthem and about 3 pitches into the first inning before Matthew started saying that he wanted to go to the hotel. Avery was fighting Eric, because she wanted to get down and run around (we were in the nose bleeds), and it was still really hot outside.  We managed to stick it out to the third inning, but after I accidentally flung a chip at the lady in front of me because Matt wanted to sit in my lap and then accidentally kicked her, I thought we should probably walk around a bit.

We left after the bottom of the fifth and headed back to the hotel, watched the rest of Beauty and the Beast that was playing on Freeform, and then went to bed.

It wasn't the picture perfect night away that I had imagined when I booked the trip, but the memories and excitement I saw from my toddlers made the trip 1000% worth it.