The closest thing to a vacation

Last week, Matt and I went out to Indiana and Ohio to check out some possible places to live. Matt has a job offer in a place called Connersville, Indiana.

Connersville is basically in the middle of nowhere. It's about an hour away from Indianapolis, Cincinatti, and Dayton, OH. Here's a lovely map.

Anyway, the place in Connersville has offered Matt a good job and they paid for us both to come out there to check out the area. So we went for 3 days and looked around at a million houses and neighborhoods. By the end of the 2nd day I was feeling really discouraged. I did not like any of the areas we looked at, and I was ready to call it quits and say that we're not moving there.

I definitely did not like Connersville at all. We looked in the suburbs of the 3 major cities, and thought that if we could find something on the outskirts of the suburbs that it would only be about 40 minutes to Connersville, but we'd still be near civilization. We really didn't like those parts of town at all.

On the morning of the 3rd day, we drove to a small town on the border of Indiana/Ohio called Oxford. It's the home of the University of Miami of Ohio. And I actually sort of liked it. It's really small and basically a college town, but it had character. And it wasn't full of beater trucks and rundown or abandoned buildings like some of the other places we looked. Then we got home and I did some more research and found out that it's #16 on the list of "best party schools". But it's also #3 in the nation of quality of undergraduate education.

Anyway, if we did move there, Oxford was the only place I'd even be willing to consider living. There was also another place on the outskirts of Cincinatti that also probably would be doable. It's called Harrison, OH.

Things are still up in the air. We're having a hard time making a decision. The job would be good, but I really didn't love the area. Then, after we got back, Matt's work announced that they were moving to Charlotte, NC. I could do Charlotte. Then they said that they wanted Matt to go to Boston, not to Charlotte. That they were just moving the manufacturing to Charlotte, but the engineers to Boston.

I'm not crazy about the idea of Boston either. I lived there for 4 years and I liked it fine, but it's just big and busy and expensive. Plus, Matt says he doesn't think he would like the actual job in Boston. Then the guy in Boston told Matt he should go to Greenville, SC to do what he really wants to do. So Matt still needs to talk to the people in Greenville and see if that's even an option.

Things are so crazy! I feel like none of these options are ideal. We are really struggling to decide what to do.

Even though we pretty much just drove around Indiana and Ohio for 3 days, we did stop and do a few things long the way. Like this awesome Amish cheese store. The cheese was amazing! The best I've ever had. I also bought some Amish jam there, but they wouldn't let me take it on the plane. :(

We actually saw some Amish people riding down the street in one of these buggies.

Also, in the middle of nowhere, we stumbled across a Wright Brothers Museum. I guess they were from the Indiana/Ohio area. It was really interesting to learn more about them.

And about corn! Ha!

This was the birthplace of Wilbur Wright.

They had all sorts of information about the first flight and everything leading up to it. It was really quite interesting.

They had a life-size replica of the first flyer that they took to Kitty Hawk to make the first flight.

While we were driving around we stopped at this little cafe in Shelbyville, IN for dinner. It was amazing! They had the best garlic bread rolls I've ever had in my life. And everything was so fresh and made from scratch. I loved it!

We drove past a million cornfields. One thing that was weird was that the roads were so skinny. They had no shoulders. Where would I run and ride my bike? Or drive around the minivan for that matter!

I had heard about the Cincinatti chili spaghetti and wanted to try some. It was weird. Matt refused to get some chili spaghetti so he got cheese coneys instead (chili dogs).

On our way back to the airport, we stopped at the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati. It was HUGE! We didn't even get to see everything. But it told about the whole history of slavery. We only got to spend about an hour there before catching our flight back home, but it was really interesting.

Even though we were just driving around looking at potential places to live most of the time, it was still nice to get away. A HUGE thanks to Nathan and Jessica for watching Emmy and Zach while we were gone. They really were a lifesaver.

Now to make some decisions.....

Carnival

I took Emmy to the little carnival at the South Jordan Country Fest last weekend. She had a blast! They had some fun free games, we watched some zorbing, and she got to ride the carousel.

And then we got a Dole Whip. As we were walking back to the car, Emmy said, "That was such a beautiful trip, Mom!" What a fun time with my girl.

Blackberries

Emmy and Zach snarfed down an entire tub of blackberries the other day.