Love, Learn, Play: Road Trip

On Wednesday the boys had a direct booking for another photo shoot with Step 2 in Cleveland. Jon was back to work, my mom- who is my usual sidekick for our Cleveland trips- had to take my grandpa to the doctors, and we all agreed it wasn't a good idea for me to make the three hour one-way trip alone with the boys, so my dad got to join us for the first time. He has never seen the boys work, so it pretty exciting for all of us and just a great chance to spend some quality time with grandpa.

We left the house at 6:30 in the morning, which is an hour later than we usually leave, and it was just enough extra sleep in their beds to keep the boys from falling back to sleep in the car! Just as we were approaching the Maumee River in Toledo I was certain they were getting sleep as their eyelids were rather droopy... until we crossed the river and all of a sudden there are two frantically excited little voices from the backseat shouting "A SHIP!!! A SHIP!!! A SHIP A SHIP A SHIP MAMA!!!" Much thanks to the bulk freighter unloading iron oar at 7:15am. They were awake for the rest of the trip!

The photo shoot went amazingly well. The product was a new picnic table, so instead of shooting individually as they always have with Little Tikes and Step 2, there were a total of five kids enjoying a picnic together. That poor photographer!!! It's hard enough to get one 3 year old to do exactly what you want, much less five of them!!! They had peanut butter sandwiches, grapes, and *gasp* juice boxes for the kids' picnic. I quietly instructed the boys to only pretend to drink the juice but not actually drink any as prior to that exact moment in time they had never consumed so much as a sip of of juice. And surprisingly they listened quite well. But what I didn't think about was the novelty of the box itself. When the boys figured out that you could squeeze the box and launch the juice out like a torpedo, they were THRILLED! I sheepishly apologized, stating that they had never had juice boxes before and everyone in the room but one mother found that to be unbelievable. Her little guy was squeezing away too!!! Really- who thought "Hey, let's invent this product for young kids and make it so that they can shoot juice all over!" Great idea dude. Anyways- I ran over and sucked both juice boxes dry while the photographers were checking the pictures they had and voila! Problem solved!!! Of course that wasn't the end of the boys antics- they brought the house down when one of the photographers asked all of the kids what they wanted to be for Halloween in an attempt to get them all chatting and smiling. Both of our boys didn't miss a beat and loudly proclaimed that they were going to be the Titanic for Halloween!! I'm still not sure whether to be embarrassed or proud when they say such things and every grown up in ear shot has their jaw drop to the floor! When the guy asked about which other ships they liked, they rifled off their favorites- the Lusitania, the Britannic, the Edmund Fitzgerald- and he wasn't quite sure how to respond! After the boys were done- one of the photographers gave them the box from their last photo shoot with Step 2. It was quite a surprise as it isn't even in stores yet- and because BOTH boys were on the same box!! I'm not sure if it is because the photos were so incredible or because I know how hard the boys AND the photography team worked to get those shots- but it is by far my favorite box!!!! I was so thankful that he was able to give us one :)

Jon and I have continued to help the boys pursue modeling and acting opportunities not only because they seem to love doing it, but also because it opens us up to adventures and experiences we wouldn't otherwise be able to give the boys. While reading through an Ohio brochure he picked up at the turnpike rest stop, Caleb happened to notice that the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland had a Titanic exhibit. Only my kid would discover such a thing!!! We called daddy back at home to check it out online and he also found that there was a Great Lakes bulk freighter at the science center!!!!! So after the shoot we took a detour on the way home and ended up forgoing the Titanic exhibit (expensive!) for the tour of the William G. Mather, a retired 618 foot freighter docked in Lake Erie just outside the science center. The boys were literally in Heaven!!!!!

Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, OH