"If you don't like the weather here, just wait 30 minutes..."

Well… Our trip is already half way over, and I can’t believe it. I have loved Cincinnati so far – the homes here are to die for! So adorable, and they have way better food places than Oregon; I would totally live here except 1. It’s not Oregon, 2. It’s far from my family and 3. They live by “If you don’t like the weather here, just wait 30 minutes.” We have been in two thunderstorms already, and one was way too close for comfort! Oh, and coffeehouses are basically non-existent…no good.

Back track to yesterday… 1am-7am, Monica spends most of the evening throwing up. 6am, I started the same process until about 3pm. Both of us were sick all day long, spending the majority of the day in our beds, sleeping and making trips to the bathroom. By the end of the day my body was exhausted from throwing up, sleeping and just feeling crummy. Just making the trip to the bathroom took nearly all my energy. I was thinking over what yesterday taught me. One is that I am grateful for people that I’ve known for barely 5 days who are willing to go out of their way to take care of us, and that you don’t have to go to some slum, third-world area to get sick on a mission trip – it can happen anywhere! It was a bummer of a day, and I was sad to miss out on helping at Matthew 25 Ministries again, and we had to move our experience at Graeter’s Ice Cream to Thursday, so I am looking forward to that!

Today – Wednesday, Monica and I woke up feeling much better after a good night of rest. Today was our day off! First, we went to breakfast at Half Day Café, a small joint started by a family in the Taylor’s church that served delicious breakfast and lunch items! It was especially a blessing when the owner let us know his son would be picking up our bill for the day. We then headed to downtown Cincinnati where we went to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center – and that was really awesome. Alisa has pictures from it, which we will post soon. Then Jeremy gave us a tour of downtown, we saw a lot of cool buildings and spent a little time at a fresh produce and food place called Findlay Market, right in the middle of Over the Rhine, the poorest part of the city. We will be going there tomorrow and Friday to work at the Food Bank, distributing food to those who need it. After dinner at the church, we shopped at this place called charming Charlie (seriously, coolest girly store ever!) and a craft store called Archivers – believe it or not, it was even better than Craft Warehouse!

For now, that’s all. We are all thankful that Monica and I are feeling better and excited for the rest of the week! I can’t believe we head home in 3 days!

Thanks for keeping up on us!

-Dana