Maren and Braden's Visit

Toren’s sister, Maren, also came to visit us. Of course she brought along our nephew, Braden. We were able to spend a whole week with them! This was the first time Toren and I had met little Braden. He was everything we could have hoped for, and more. For a more comprehensive record of what we did this week you’ll want to take a look at Maren or Mallory’s blog. They’ve been much better bloggers than me. But, I’ll give the overview.

One of our first adventures was going to the Olentangy Indian Caverns. This was something I’d been dying to do all summer. The caverns were formed thousands of years ago by flowing lava. The Indians in the area found them and used them for shelter during the winter. We could even see marks from their fires on the cave ceilings. It was very cool. We walked through the caves with a tour guide, winding through tunnels, admiring the stalactites and stalagmites.

We also drove down to Cincinnati, via the Outlet stores along the way, to go to the King’s Island theme park. It was pretty busy and we spent a lot of time waiting in lines, but it was worth every ride we went on! By the end of our time we were all hoping we’d spent a whole day there instead of a half. We were only able to conquer half of the park.

After church on Sunday we drove to Hocking Hills State Park. The whole park is rather large. We visited Old Man’s Cave and Ash Cave, a couple of the more popular areas of the park. It was a beautiful trip. Braden and Baxter even enjoyed it. Overall, it was a wonderful week.