The "NorthCoast" Ohio adventure - PTR July 10-22 About This Page:

[mfirst]

Well, I really enjoyed writing the PTR and TR's for our previous two Disney trips. Coach suggested that I create an itinerary for our upcoming "Cleveland extravaganza" as he's taken to calling our final (tentative) plans for our summer vacation this year. I also find writing cathartic because it allows me to process through things, as well as to pass on helpful tips and information.

Well, with the birth of my nephew, Gabriel Joseph, last week, we decided to move our Disney idea from this August to next summer. While a little sad that Coach had dangled the idea in front of me for scheduling a trip this August, and we could financially swing a tone-downed trip, we decided it would give us a better chance of having the new Mine Train coaster opened, plus....My parents will be joining us again on the trip.

So, we went BACK to the drawing board for a summer vacation. This is the first year in almost 20 that Coach isn't going to be coaching football. It was a really tough decision for us to make, but with the changes for the program - the practice was going to be from 6-8:30 during the week, and they were going to be on the sidelines for all home football games, plus mandatory Saturday morning practices - way too much to ask of JH students IMO...Coach felt it would take too much time away from the kids. This is also Coach's (hopefully) last year as a classroom teacher as he's been looking for an administration job which would make coaching tough.

So...the cast:
Me, Melissa - the stay-at home mom, hoping to return to the classroom full-time and currently teaching adult enrichment classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings through a local trade school. I will be turning 40 during our Cleveland Extravaganza and Coach is under strict orders to ignore the birthday. We'll see if he manages that

Coach - my darling husband of nine years, and my best friend for the past 19 Wow that's a big number typed out like that. I stated in my last TR, that family vacations are a big deal to him because his family only took one though his parents traveled a lot, they just didn't let he or his brother tag along.

Nolan, he's now officially 8 and an official third grader. His favorite things (today) are reading (he reads on a six grade level), swimming and torturing his brothers. He's been able to accomplish two of the three so far this summer. With the cool, wet weather we've been having, it's safe to say swimming isn't one of his three activities right now.

Patrick - he's five and anxiously counting away summer because he wants to start Kindergarten and can't wait until August. He's recently learned to read and enjoys our Monday trips to the library so he can get new books, though he did confide that he's worried the library is going to run out of books for him to read.

Cullen will be turning four this August. He's had a bit of a rough transition from his special preschool to summer and we noticed this past weekend, he's starting to regress with his speech again and seems to be loosing words that he cold readily say even a month ago. He was diagnosed with a Developmental Delay in October, and last month the pediatric specialist confirmed that he is indeed "on the spectrum". We also have a tentative diagnosis of speech apraxia, This particular speech disorder does tend to occur in autistic children, and it can create symptoms/behaviors which appear to be autism but which are really attributed to his speech disorder. Confusing? I have an entire three year binder just full of various assessment data that we're still trying to sort through. What does all this mean? Life can be calm, but it can also be challenging with Cullen and it definitely requires a lot of extra planning!

Travel with a child on the spectrum presents many gift and challenges. Food allergies also increase those gifts and challenges. Patrick has a a severe allergy to Milk protein and Cullen has an allergy. We think Cullen's is milder than Patrick's simply because we caught it much earlier - he was assessed and diagnosed at 6 weeks of age vs. 12 months for Patrick after repeated exposures (but that's a whole different topic).

I'll end today with a general introduction of our plans:
July 10th - Coach and I's official 9th wedding anniversary - though we are planning to celebrate at a later date. Today we will meet up halfway to Cleveland with my parents and I will be going to their house, he will be returning home with the boys to care for them for a few days while my mom and I head to NYC to visit my brother and I get to meet my new nephew!

July 11th - will be a bright and early day for me. Mom and I are driving to NYC. Well, I'll be driving and she'll be riding because Mom won't drive on any highway. We're planning on leaving their house at 5:00 AM which will put us arriving in Brooklyn around 3:00p.m. and theoretically missing NY rush hour traffic. Matt has leased a two bedroom unit in his brownstone for us for our stay. My sister-in-law's sister and family will be arriving the day Mom and I leave.

July 12th - weather permitting, we're planning on heading to the Central Park Zoo with my brother and nephew. It's also Jill's first day back to work from her maternity leave. Matt is working on a surprise for us for that night

July 13th - We plan on heading to Coney Island or my brother and I may possibly head to Fire Island to look over the house reconstruction. Jill's family home was damaged in the hurricane last year and they've finally gotten the go-ahead from the insurance to begin rebuilding.

July 14th - Mom and I will be leaving at 6:00 this morning It will be hard to leave my little nugget of a nephew, especially since it isn't there year to come for Christmas (but I've started working on Matt to think about coming in for Thanksgiving). I will be happy to arrive back at Mom and Dad's because Coach and my boys will be there.

Next update - I will include the itinerary for the Cleveland portion of the travel extravaganza!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start and plans!

[chezp]

Great start!

[lauriep]

Sounds great so far!

[Jakesmom1118]

Sounds great! I'm looking forward to reading what your plans are for Cleveland because that's the area I live!

[Carousel96]

I grew up in Cleveland, so I'm looking forward to this TR

[mfirst]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Great start and plans!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by chezp

Great start!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by lauriep

Sounds great so far!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Jakesmom1118

Sounds great! I'm looking forward to reading what your plans are for Cleveland because that's the area I live!

East or West? I grew up in Rocky River, and my parents and most of their siblings still live in Cleveland

Originally Posted by Carousel96

I grew up in Cleveland, so I'm looking forward to this TR

East or West? I grew up in Rocky River and my Dad's family is from Shaker Heights.

[Carousel96]

Originally Posted by mfirst

East or West? I grew up in Rocky River, and my parents and most of their siblings still live in Cleveland

East or West? I grew up in Rocky River and my Dad's family is from Shaker Heights.

I'm from that mythical south side I went to HS in Brecksville.
My husband is from Westlake. His parents still live there and he has a brother in Parma.

[mushu22]

Great start!

[mfirst]

Originally Posted by Carousel96

I'm from that mythical south side I went to HS in Brecksville.
My husband is from Westlake. His parents still live there and he has a brother in Parma.

The mythical south side - sorry, but that really made me giggle. My sister-in-law is from the mythical south side - though her family left before she started middle school.

Originally Posted by mushu22

Great start!

Thank you!

[Jakesmom1118]

Originally Posted by mfirst

Thank you!


Thanks!

Thank you!

East or West? I grew up in Rocky River, and my parents and most of their siblings still live in Cleveland

East or West? I grew up in Rocky River and my Dad's family is from Shaker Heights.

Southwest area...Parma Heights is where we live now (grew up down the street from where we live now!)

[Cam22]

Great start and plans!

[mfirst]

Originally Posted by Jakesmom1118

Southwest area...Parma Heights is where we live now (grew up down the street from where we live now!)

You'll probably be able to glean this from this trip, but I'd love to be back in the Cleveland area! Right now, to get to a real mall area, we have a good 45 minute hike. I know my parents and the "caboodle" as we've dubbed all the relatives, would love for us to move back north.

Originally Posted by Cam22

Great start and plans!

Thanks Cam! back from your trip! Congratulations again on your retirement

[mfirst]

As we've started our summer trip planning, we decided to take a quick side trip to see my in-laws, give them grandparent time and head to the Toledo Zoo to view the new twin polar bear babies. I think I mentioned, but my parents gave us a season pass to the Cleveland Zoo and we have been planning lots of ways to take advantage of the awesome list of places which will give us discounts from that admission.

We were up for the day e.a.r.l.y. Cullen and Patrick, knowing we were going to "Grammy and Gramps" house decided to wake us up at 4:45. Thankfully, I was able to convince Patrick to snuggle with Coach for a bit longer, but Cullen wasn't having any of it. I gave up and decided to have him finish packing our overnight bags.

I finished putting our 3 overnight bags (one for Coach & I, one for the boys and & contained diapers/pull-ups for Cullen and their night time snuggles.) All that was left? Cleaning up breakfast dishes, watering the garden, putting the chemicals in the pool and well - waiting until around 7:00 to actually leave the house.

Our drive was an uneventful 3 hours. Luckily, Cullen feel asleep and managed to snooze for about 1/2 the trip or we would have had a huge puddle on our hands. We stopped at my in-laws for a quick lunch and headed right to the zoo then (about 45 minutes from their house via "backroads" because they live almost to the border of Michigan. My F-i-l decided not to come. He has trouble walking, and is a bit too proud to allow us to rent a wheelchair - even though is doctor has recommended he use a wheelchair daily because of his circulation problems.

Here's where the pass perks really came in handy. The Zoo charges $7.00 to park. I had not planned for that. For three adults and 3 children, without our pass, we would have paid $79.00 to enter the zoo. Our pass allowed us to recieve a 50% discount on each admission, bringing our total to $36.00. Definitely glad we have that pass!

Our tour guides were wonderful for the trip!




Neither Nolan nor Patrick let go of their maps the entire trip!

The Polar bear exhibit, along with the "African Savannah" exhibit are on the parking lot side of the zoo. To get to the rest, you need to take a bridge over the four line parkway which separates the zoo. We decided to head to the Polar bear area first.

Before getting to the viewing area, we stopped to say hello to a few baby seals:


The polar bear viewing was inside, and the platform is 6 feet up in the air - not picture friendly at all. It was really cute to watch them romping and wrestling, but because it was up in the air, and a sunny day, the pictures I took all came up white.

After we watched the polar bears for a bit, we headed to the African Savannah. In order to view the giraffes, you need to take a train. In order to ride the train, you need to pay $2.50 per person. We handed over the $15.00 to board the train. We did hear some pretty neat facts - Giraffes eat for almost 22 hours a day and take "micro naps" with their eyes open, standing still for 2 minutes or less at a time.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my extra lens with the camera, so it was hard to get good pictures of the animals because they were quite a distance back from the train area.

Sorry for the picture! The baby giraffe is on the left as was born here 2 years ago. In the background is a man made termite mound. Nolan remarked that they needed to "talk with the people who run the Animal Kingdom because they have better fake termite mounds"

My buddy for the train ride


Patrick was excited because he found an Okapi!


Cullen kept pointing out the Ostrich and moving his head like the one walking alongside the train.

After our African trek, we headed over the pedestrian bridge to the main part of the zoo. I have to say that the Toledo zoo is really pretty and I also need to apologize because I didn't take too many other pictures. We checked out the African Penguins, and the newer Elephant habitat. The boys loved watching the Meerkats, but like the Polar bears, the picture opportunities were limited because the animals were set back quite a distance.

We finished our tour with the newest exhibit - the Salt Water Crocodile.


His tail is 5 feet in length and he weighs 1500 tons Definitely NOT something I'd want to come across in the wild!

We returned to Coach's parents house and had a great grilled steak dinner! The next afternoon, we returned home and the boys were excited to FINALLY be able to swim.


Notice Cullen isn't in the picture? He got out quickly stammering that the water "shrunk" his legs.

Finally, Patrick's baseball season ended with his first trophy - he was named "best hitter" on his team.


Now on to our planning:
We know that we will be taking the boys to Cedar Point, so I contact the park relations to ask about how they handle food allergies. I was pleasantly surprised because they do have several options which are dairy free (they also have a lot of gluten free options). They also said that I may "pack a lunch/dinner and guest relations will direct you to several fast food areas which have refrigerators that can store the packed food, as well as microwaves for heating items as needed" if that would help alleviate my concerns.

Finally, the do offer two programs one for parents and one designed for those with autism or other disorders. The parent swap program is a special pass which must be requested at guest relations (at the main entrance to the park). The pass will have one parent wait in line, ride the line then show the "child swap" pass to an employee and the other parent will be allowed to enter the ride through the exit. Similarly, parents can swap children who are tall enough for a ride, but unable to ride alone.

The autism pass works a bit differently and seems to be similar to a timed FP. We would be given times to approach a ride and be taken through a separate line (or exit) to allow our son to experience the ride with a reduced waiting time. Because he's only 3, and not tall enough for the roller coasters, I'm waiting to hear back from the guest relations to see if that would even work in our situation. Either way, I'll post the reply so anyone else traveling with an autistic individual or someone with special needs knows what to expect.

We are also planning to spend the night in Sandusky and currently have three hotels in mind - Sandcastle Suites, the Hotel Breakers (original hotel at CP) and The Breakers Express. This is a new experience for both Coach and I because we each grew up within easy driving distance. We've decided to spend the night because the CP hotels allow resort guests to enter the park one hour early PLUS they offer better discounted tickets (cheaper even than AAA tickets), and allow free parking at the theme park/hotel. The original Breakers is within walking d.istance of the park.

Next: What else will we do in Sandusky before returning to Cleveland?

[OhToodles!]

Looking forward to this PTR/TR! Wow that zoo is pricey! We're totally spoiled by so many free things here in St. Louis. We are going to the zoo this weekend for Father's Day in fact. Looked like a good time though.