For those of you who haven't heard of Twins Days (I never had before having twins), it is the largest annual gathering of twins in the world (yes, the WORLD). What was even more exciting for us is that this festival was only 3 1/2 hours away from home. Just outside Cleveland, Twinsburg is a small, little-known town in northeastern Ohio. It's a fairly exclusive area and doesn't even have its own Wal-Mart, much to our surprise. Twinsburg is known worldwide by twins, and this festival has been taking place for 34 years. Twins come from all over the planet, and this year there were sets from the Czech Republic, Australia, Japan, Canada, and more. At last count when we left on Sunday there were over 1800 sets of multiples registered for the event.

Twins Days is three solid days of twin-centric celebration starting with a twin-only event Friday night. This private event is only for twins and their families, and includes a prize raffle, free hot dog dinner, and lots of socializing. Not being a twin myself, I almost felt like I was crashing some private club meeting. I had never seen so many multiples in one location before--it was amazing. While we didn't win anything in the raffle, we met lots of really nice people as well as some great parents of young twins. People watching is an official pasttime here.

Saturday and Sunday was the actual festival itself, open to the public but still attended mostly by twins. Saturday morning was the parade, which we missed. There were also several contests, and we entered the boys in the "least alike under 12 months" contest. They ended up winning 2nd place and two "silver" medals! We were so incredibly proud of our beautiful little guys. We didn't even get to see much of the talent competitions or entertainment going on because there was so much to do. The festival grounds itself isn't that large, but there is still a lot to do, see, and eat.

This year we got a good feel for what the event is all about and if we would want to go again. The boys were too little to really enjoy it, but seemed to have a good time being outside and getting so much attention (as well as banana popsicles). We've decided that Twins Days will now be an annual family tradition, and unless we're living across the country, we'll make the pilgrimage back to Twinsburg every August until the boys don't want to go anymore.

After traveling out west and seeing some amazing places such as Yosemite, Zion, and Chugach in Alaska, I realized there are some absolutely amazing sites in this world, and I need to make the time to see them before they are (or I am) gone.

This list is limited solely to places in the continental U.S. I would very much like to get out of the country and see places across the globe, but that is for another post and most likely not going to happen until my kids are in college.

Here is my top 10, in order of preference:

1. Yellowstone
2. Grand Canyon
3. Arches
4. Petrified Forest
5. Bryce Canyon
6. Black Hills
7. Painted Desert
8. Grand Tetons
9. Rocky Mountains
10. Crater Lake

This is not necessarily my entire list, but that would be too long and most likely unattainable. This is my "realistic" list for now.

Rhonda and I just got back from her aunt's home on Lake Norris in Tennessee. It was a very good weekend. We got some serious relaxation in, and I did a ton of fishing. The fish weren't really biting for me, but I did catch a small bass this morning before leaving. Rhonda's aunt caught a channel catfish on Saturday and Jim and I filleted him and we had him for dinner--it was the freshest fish I've ever had! Normally, I don't enjoy fish, but this one was pretty good fried up and battered.

The lake was THE place to be this weekend. I've never seen so many boaters, skiers, jet skiers, kayakers, swimmers and tubers in my whole life. The highlight was a party at Flat Hollow Marina complete with a band and fireworks.

I forgot just how much I love summer. Winters around Dayton tend to do that to a person, I guess. There's nothing like a hot summer evening, just hanging out. These kind of days go by way too fast in my opinion...summer needs to be much longer than it is. Or, maybe I need to be somewhere that doesn't get so dang cold in the winter ;-)

Catch the photos and vids here.

If anyone out there has been to OSK before, drop me a line and let me know what's fun to do, what to see, where to go, etc. I'm not sure how much free time I'm going to have (if any), but from what I understand we're going to have at least one free evening. Apparently, this area is one affected by the major Midwest flooding, so I'm not sure what I'm in for.

Things are quite different this year, though. The conference was pushed from March (hence "Spring Break") to June. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to attend since I'm hitting CFUnited in June also, but was able to pull some strings and my boss let me go. The conference is still sponsored by Adobe, but the keynote speaker hasn't been announced, yet (it has been Ben Forta the last few years). Apparently, Eric Meyer, the CSS master, will be doing the lunchtime keynote.

The biggest shocker this year is the price increase. It was originally free (just two years ago), then, last year, the price was $25. This year it shot up to $45 and $55 for hands-on sessions. For as long as it took them to get anything online about the conference this year, I was very hesitant to go or pay the fee this time around. We'll see if the higher fee is worth it this year. I will be blogging from the conference and posting to Twitter so be sure and stay tuned!

We were looking for a hotel the other night, and we were able to just touch "POI's" (Points of Interest) and search for "hotels". Then, we were able to look up and get phone numbers for all the hotels near us. We found a $60/night room when everything else was $90-$100+. How awesome is that?

Oh yeah--not to mention the really feature of keeping me from getting lost. Worth every penny.

Rhonda just found out she is going with her friend to Los Angeles next month. She's very excited, and I'm excited for her. I wish I could go, but I just have way too much going on here for the next couple of months. She'll have a great time.

Rhonda and I head out for NC in a couple days...now just trying to get some of the last minute things done for school and around the house. I posted some pics to Flickr of the new Thule luggage carrier we put on the Vue. Hopefully, it will survive the trip!