An addendum.

I'd just like to add to Brian's post. Here's a picture of a John Deere tractor for Grandpa Vernie. We saw it at the festival. His tractors are only a few years younger than this!!

And they had a HUGE miniature train display that was amazing. They had all sorts of tiny little people posed all over and even "underground" and they had stories for all the different settings.

And, more on the bookstore....It was BEAUTIFUL!!!!! It's called the Stately Raven Bookstore. The walls were painted all cozy colors, and there are chairs and couches, the stairs to get to the various levels are gorgeous. The balcony is a beautiful cozy little couch-y area, perfect for book clubs, or just reading by yourself. And, they had an awesome selection of books, the standard best sellers, good varietals in all sorts of book categories and our favorite - a great quirky section called the wierd room, where we also found one of our new games - Munchkin! Also worth noting because of my love for young adult books (you'd think I'd grow out of those), they have a downstairs room dedicated to kid's books and a little room for young adult/teen books. (I found all of the books Jessie and I talked about this summer and some more that she would like!!) So after perusing the store, we checked out with some books from the wierd room - I got another Neil Gaiman book. But of course with us, we don't just check out. We started talking to the 2 guys at the checkout and Brian was talking to the one about Munchkin and games. I was talking to the other about Neil Gaiman. I didn't realize it, but I picked out his staff recommendation book! Unfortunately, we had to skedaddle so we couldn't talk long, because we would have missed our movie. But, we're going to be regulars there. And we're taking all of our future visitors there.

Thanks again dad for coming to visit!!

Living the Ohio Dream...

Another week has come and gone in beautiful north-west Ohio! I've gotten through three weeks of law classes, and in another twelve it's on to my first round of law school finals. I'm not nervous yet, but I am spending much of my free time at school in the law library studying.

Last weekend we had the pleasure of hosting Rick (Janet's dad for those not in the know). he arrived Saturday morning, and after he and Janet bummed around town and I studied, we drove a 1/2 mile down the road for the "festival" taking place at the Northwest Ohio RR Preservation Society.

It was an annual festival with food (notably homemade ice cream from some type of John Deere contraption, see photo); a 1/4 scale steam locomotive offering rides; a large and impressive train layout; tour of an old caboose many tractors and other old-timey tractors and steam engine powered stuff. the coolest part for me was the modestly sized civil war reenactment encampment, while Janet loved the alpacas!

We had a nice dinner, and went to see the film 3:10 to Yuma, which was GREAT!!!! I think I can speak for all three of us that we highly recommend it. Also, we found a wonderful new bookstore in Findlay, The Stately Raven, which is housed in a beautiful old church, recently renovated for its new purpose. We'll likely be spending much more time there in the coming months...

Sunday was relaxing, mixed with studying, and watching (but mostly fast-forwarding) the recorded Badgers and Packers football games. We're determined to "buck" the system, and not become "Buckeye" fans just because we're Ohians...Ohioans...Ohionites...um, people who live in Ohio. And, just to make our friends in Italy jealous, we also enjoyed take-away from Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner!

Coming soon - more fun Ohio trivia...stay tuned.