O-H! I-O!

We spent the weekend in Akron, Ohio. We had a surprise party for Todd's dad's not-quite-60 birthday party. He didn't want a party, so we made it a surprise. Our trip there was quite the adventure. On Friday our plane was supposed to leave at 1:59 pm, so we got to the airport about 2 hours before that. At the Delta desk, we were told that our flight had been delayed 45 minutes because the incoming plane had a medical emergency and had to land in mid-flight. Well, our layover in Atlanta was only an hour, so we would not be able to catch the flight from Atlanta to Akron. Then the Delta CS rep said we'd miss the last Delta flight from Atlanta to Akron for Friday, so we'd have to stay overnight in Atlanta and take the first flight out on Saturday. We didn't much like the idea. They weren't paying for the hotel. Plus we'd be bored sitting in a hotel room in Atlanta. So we opted to go home and take a later red-eye flight to Ohio instead. Yuck. No good options! We arrived in Akron on Sat at 9:30 am, bleary-eyed and ragged-tailed. We crashed for a few hours, then it was on to the big party! The surprise birthday party was disguised as the 10th Anniversary Party for Workplace Consultants, the company Todd's mom Sylvia owns with two other partners. So Todd's Dad Tim had no clue. Here's the look on his face an hour into the party when he found out the party was for him.

People went up and told stories of Tim. Todd was up first and told several funny stories of his dad.


The next day, we gave Tim his birthday present, which was tickets to the Cleveland Indians game at Jacobs Field, versus the Cincinnati Reds.



I zoomed up and got a shot of Ken Griffey Jr - post swing.


After the game, we went to see Tim's office at Watson Wyatt in downtown Cleveland. Outside the building, there were these artsy statues playing music. We couldn't resist, so we joined in.


Tim's office in the highrise has awesome views. One of which is the lakefront Cleveland Browns Stadium! I actually took the pic from the window of one of the conference rooms.


During the trip, we spent a lot of time catching up with family. It was good to see Todd's sister Amy. We saw Aunt Charlsie and Uncle Dick, who told stories from their travels. They spent one and a half years volunteering in Kenya and had quite a bunch of interesting stories. We also got good stories from Uncle Gordon and Aunt Muneca. It was fun chatting with Todd's cousin Kathleen and her husband Bob, who came all the way from Phoenix to attend the festivities. Spending time with loved ones is always good, even if we have to fly red-eye to get there!