~Ashland, Medina & Cleveland~

Last weekend mom and I started our vacation on Friday in Ashland, Medina & Cleveland! Once we got to Cleveland we met up with the guys (Tommy drove in from Norwalk and Daddy flew in from Chicago) and stayed til Sunday! I had such a great time with mom on the way up. Daddy went to a place called Grandpa's Cheese Barn not too long ago and said, "You have to save your money and go!" Why save money for a shop that's free to get into, you ask! Trust me now too... save your money... you'll want to spend a lot of it when you're there. It was amazing. It's in Ashland, Ohio about an hour north of Columbus. There's a Barn/Gift Shop/Cheese and Dried Goods Shop, A Sweets Shop and 4 B&B rooms if you wanna stay the night. I can not begin to tell you how many times I have driven by... for goodness sake I went to Kent and came home all the time. Plus, it's on the way to Cleveland... Hello Tribe! It was so worth it. Mom and I spent at least an hour and a half there before heading up to Cleveland. Later you'll here we stopped in Medina too!

The B&B's!
Cute sign with Gpa's actual house in the back!
Jars of Everything Pickle!
The main floor of the cheese barn was mostly a gift shop and a few items to try. Upstairs were the "goods"! lol! I had to take a pic of the stairs! You can read what all was up there. Mom and I got three kinds of cheese to take to Cleveland and some mini treats for the guys to try.
Then we walked over to the Sweet Shop, so many choices!
Everything you could think of!
My mom found these Gummi Fried Eggs in the Sweets Shop. She loves eggs. Has them every day. She picked these up and said, "Now, these might make me not like eggs anymore!" and laughed. She not a big sweets person.
Can you believe this.... You can get candy Pizza. Not only that but you can "order them" in any size you like. See the top left? Extra Large! lol. Now, that's creative!!!
HaHa
Me and Mom in front of "Sweeites"
The sign. The ice cream was Hershy's Ice Cream. We decided not to get any. If it had been home made on the farm there we might of.
Leaving. The pic taken from the freeway.
As we left Ashland mom asked do you wanna stop at Lodi and go shopping? Lodi is an Outlet mall. I said no I have something else in mind... We got off at the Medina exit. I told her that I had been to their uptown shops and thought she would enjoy them. What she didn't know was that Tommy's cousin Bert has a bead shop there and that's where we were really headed. While we were trying to find a parking spot we saw many police cars blocking off the block we were on. It was kind of nerve wrecking at first but soon we see this...

The elementary school kids cheering in front of the school!

At the bead shop, on "Uncle Dan's" Norwalk Furniture.

With Bert, Dan's son while shopping!

We went to the used book store afterwords. I was excited to find Reba Sheet Music! lol.
This is for you Jill. Medina had a Chic Puppy Store. They had JUICY items. If I was made of money I totally would have bought one for Sammy.
Jackson would never like these let alone fit in one! lol.
Saw this in a window and had to get a pic of it on the way out of town. Off to Cleveland we go...

God Blessed this country with the greatest sport on the planet, Baseball! Although driving into Cleveland we saw this, "WHATEVER!" LeBron, your banner should have already come down!

Anyway... Daddy plays at the Indians Fan Camp in the winter in AZ. They always have a reunion game at the Jake. Yes I know that technically it's called Progressive Field now but I don't care. IT WILL ALWAYS BE "THE JAKE" to me and many other fans! Daddy was such a happy camper to be out on the field again, like a kid at Christmas in June!
Tommy went out on the field to photograph the game(s). He made a good point to take off his shoes and say, "The outfield - the grass - it is spongy!!!!" "Tommy, focus!" I laughed so hard that people around me took a double take at me. Of course no one could hear him... I was reading his lips. Had anyone heard him, they'd 'a been laughing too! (Quote is from Fever Pitch)
Daddy's team name was "Grover's Muppets". The coaches name was Grover (he couldn't make it but he did have a t-shirt) both Ernie shirts are BERTs and the team name also came from three of the brothers last names are SherBERT! lol. They had such a good time together.
Tommy & Daddy
There's two ways this could read... Oppt #2 is that they want us to read this before we hang it with the psychological thought that our reason isn't really good enough. That way the cleaning ladies don't have to skip rooms and go back to do them later.
Nice Place to have an After Party

At the "After Party" Tommy and I played Chess!
Daddy showing pix of his house!
Yogy the Dog wanting to lick my daddy's face!
Oh my goodness, hello to some of our entertainment from the party! This parrot was cracking us up. Everytime the phone rang (for people trying to get to the house) he would mock the ring noise and beep from the answering machine. Apparently he knows some bad words too.
Mom talking to some of the players and one of the wives name Priscilla. She had a good time. The food was amazing too. We ate and drank too much wine. The apps alone, wow! Mango salsa, sushi, spinach and artichoke dip and more!
Mommy gave it a try and did REALLY well.
One of the bathroom walls at the house had "Sports Quotes Wallpaper". I loved it!!!!!!!
While loading the car at the hotel there was a Ford Flex in front of us. Everyone and their brother was checking it out, noooooooo joke, EVERYONE! After we got the last of the stuff in car we took a look in side of it too! lol. The man driving it was in his late sixties... loving the fact that at least 15 people were around his car. He made me sit in the front seat with him and check out the navigational system. As I got out of the seat his wife handed me her business card. Lone behold she's the Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Board for FORD in Dearborn, MI! Too funny.