Cornhole-ing in Ohio is the new awesome

You may remember my last trip to Ohio to visit Ben and Danielle and their new baby Abbey. Apparently they thought it had been too long since I had come to visit, so they decided to have another cute baby to lure me back out for another weekend.

Totally worth a trip to Ohio: Amelia!

Although I was excited to see Abbey again too, this time all grown up into a two year old, I fear the affection was not totally returned.


Now I feel your pain, bets.

Since you can see what I was up against, I feel no shame in admitting to having resorted to bribery in order to establish myself as Favorite Aunt. This obviously meant stocking up on some serious princess gear to make sure that Abbey didn't give me any more of that withering stink face. I thought it would be simple, but do you have any idea how many princess accessories there are out there these days? I spent a good hour in the pink section of Target analyzing different plastic tiara/earring/shoe/dress combos, and debating whether to throw in the talking magic mirror that exclaims "You're a pretty princess" or "Isn't it great to be royalty?" in a very affirming voice.

I think the tiara we came home with was a winner. Proof that even fake diamonds can totally be a girl's best friend:
The other important draw for this trip was the annual Columbus Neighborhood Cornhole Tournament. For those of you unfamiliar with Cornhole (make sure you don't get it confused with THAT kind of cornholing), it is favorite pasttime of many U.S. Americans where a group of people gets together to throw sacks of corn at a board with a hole in it. The game is apparently a pretty big deal out in Ohio and elsewhere in the Midwest.

The "Corn Master" showed us the very official looking winner's flowchart. There was $75 and a spot on the annual Cornhole winner's trophy at stake!

Mike and I warmed up by ruthlessly beating a 6 year old whose best strategy included throwing all of his corn bags at once.

Take that, you foolish 6 year old.
I think that cheap victory gave us a false sense of hope, because our real competition played dirty. Part of Ben's strategy was to have Amelia pee on the corn bags so that no one else would want to pick them up.

Even my most intimidating face didn't help the fact that I couldn't throw the corn bag in the hole to save my life. After a really long game ... we finally admitted defeat.

Mike and I didn't take losing well. I just went and buried all the corn bags out of spite, but I think Mike took it harder and denounced his long-held belief in The Secret, since the cosmos obviously didn't deliver him the victory that he had been asking for.

I am planning on practicing my cornholing over the next year, so that when I attend next year's Championship, my name will have a place in the winner's circle. Danielle and Ben, do you think you could work on having another kid for me to come visit by then?