Cincinnati Trip

The first weekend of August Jason and I headed to Cincinnati for a Cards/Reds game.  I mentioned here that it was my birthday present from him.  We left the kids in good hands (one night with each set of grandparents) and were gone Friday - Sunday.  We had a really nice time!  When we got to our hotel they were out of one bedroom suites, so we were upgraded to a two bedroom penthouse.  This "room" was HUGE!  It was a pretty old hotel and in need of updates, so we basically felt like we were staying in a grandparents' apartment.  The main floor (yes there were two floors) had a full kitchen, living room, 1/2 bathroom and a deck w/patio furniture.  Upstairs there were two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a walk-in closet and a balcony.  A little excessive for our party of two, no?  But it was SO nice to be so spread out!!  I got to sleep in both mornings while my early-rising hubs went downstairs to watch TV.  It was a great set-up.

Friday night we went to a sushi restaurant which happened to be across from a very fancy restaurant.  All night we watched nicely dressed people drop their fancy cars off with the valet.  Then came the Ferrari and some souped up SUVs.  We determined the men who were getting out of most of the cars were Bengals players.  Definitely some good sight seeing while we were having dinner.

After dinner we checked out Hofbrauhaus.  It was beautiful weather so we sat outside in their big beer garden and had a great time.  The beers were yummy and they were BIG!

 Saturday morning we walked around downtown a bit, grabbed some lunch, did some shopping at Macy's, got ice cream and then went back to our hotel so I could work for a bit (I know!!).  In the late afternoon we decided to check out the Goetta Fest.  Goetta is apparently a type of meat that is big in Cincinnati and we happened to catch the annual festival celebrating it.  We decided to walk there since it was a beautiful day which took us at least an hour.

 Turns out they make a LOT of different things out of goetta.  Jason decided on a goetta corndog and it was pretty good.  Not something we would write home about, but good nonetheless.

 After the festival we made our way to the Great American Baseball Stadium for the Cardinals game.

We met Jason's friend from high school, Brian Dowey and his wife Kristen, who live in Cincinnati, for beers beforehand and then went to the game with them.  We unfortunately saw the only loss of the whole weekend, but we had a fun night anyway.  It was nice to see Brian and Kristen.  Jason tapped into his romantic side and bought Kristen and me each a rose from the bathroom attendant at the bar after the game.  Lovely.

 Sunday morning (after sleeping in, of course), we decided to check out the local farmer's market on our way out of town.  We are glad we did; it was about two times the size of Soulard Market, so there was a lot to see.  We bought some uniquely flavored sausages and honey butter to take home and ate a lunch of yummy gyros.

We missed the boys while we were gone but we really enjoyed spending 1:1 time, exploring a new city, seeing a Cards game in a new stadium, and seeing our friends.  We hope to continue these trips for many years to come!