Maker faire

Saturday afternoon we decided to head to the Henry Ford Museum to check out the Maker Faire. The maker faire was a two day event that featured art, engineering, music, crafts, and technology projects in the DIY fashion. The place was pretty busy but had some pretty neat things to see. There was robotics...


Legos....


Marshmallow shooters....


Video games...



There was so much we could have never seen it all and that was inside the museum. The full attraction was set up outside in the parking lot.



There were a lot of fun bikes that you could try riding. The line was pretty long so we decided not to try ourselves but they were pretty cool.






Since Kevin didn't want to wait in the line for the big bikes he decided to have a little fun in the kid area...



The double bike with Chase was a little awkward and I think Chase was scared for his life. Chase did find some fun activities for himself. He practiced ball balancing...


and Leah even tried her hand at bike riding...


We managed to catch the demonstration of the life size mouse trap. You remember that game as a kid where you would set up the trap. I don't remember ever really playing the game just setting up the trap and trying to get it to work...









We also enjoyed the power wheels races...






Chase said he wanted to "fix up" his power wheel. I think it is fast enough just the way it is. Kevin found his favorite feature of the show...












My favorite feature of the day was the coke zero and mentos demonstration....



It is true if you put mentos in warm coke it will explode and if you are creative enough you can make a pretty cool show out of it. We saw so much more than I can mention here, it was a long but fun day for all.

Founders Day Festival

Friday night and Saturday I had a girls retreat away so Kevin was on his own with the kids. I was excited to have some time to myself but a little bummed to miss our town's Founder's Day Festival. Kevin had no fear and took on the festivities on his own.



He loaded the kids in the jogger, with breakfast to go and headed down the street for the 2 mile hike into town. The morning started with a parade and the kids waited patiently for the fun to start.






There were the usual suspects parading down the street...



Bands....



Police and fire...






and cool cars. Chase got really excited when he saw this next vehicle pass by and turned to Kevin and said, "Look daddy, its just like Grammie's..."



I guess to a 4 year old a bus is a bus. After the parade there were some fun games and activities for the kids.












They all had a wonderful time and even though I missed all the family fun I enjoyed my time away as well. I won't miss the next festival though.

Fun Friday Night

We have been so busy this summer usually by the time Friday evening rolls around we are so tired we just want to relax at home. Well this past Friday Kevin was feeling like he wanted "something good to eat". Now that wasn't meant as a total insult to my cooking but he has been working really hard at managing his diet and cutting sugar/carbs completely out that he was looking for something different. So we decided to head downtown Farmington to the Basement Burger Bar for dinner. We also decided to add in some extra exercise before dinner and walk to the restaurant.



With Kids loaded up we started the 2 mile hike to earn our dinner. The kids did great and we really enjoyed the fresh air.






Kevin was listening to a voicemail on his cell phone and had to cover the other ear to hear and Leah thought it looked like fun.



After eating all their dinner the kids of course got a little treat.






On Friday nights downtown Farmington has free music in the in the park so we strolled over for some music and dancing.









We had a wonderful evening of family fun and enjoyed our stroll home, working off our dinner.



Hope everyone else enjoyed their weekend!

The Soo Locks

So there is so much to see in Northern Michigan we had a hard time deciding what to see. We had to factor in drive time and amount of walking due to the kids so the sight that we thought would be the most interesting for everyone was the Soo Locks.



As you can see in the picture above the Soo locks are a set of parallel locks that allow ships to pass from Lake Superior to the other Great Lakes. On the US side you are in St Sault Marie looking across into Ontario Canada. I had no idea what a lock was or why it was needed before this trip. We had just missed the last big freighter passing though the locks which was kind of disappointing, but we still got the idea of how the locks operate.






The water level on the Lake superior side is higher than the water level on the Lake Huron side so the boats come into the lock and the gates are closed. The water level is then dropped to match the other side and then the gate is opened and the ship can exit. Then as you can see in the bottom picture the water level is brought back up for the next ship. It was definitely something pretty neat to see even though we missed the whole process.
The kids were kind of indifferent to the process but like to see the water and the ship that was leaving. They did enjoy snack time...






After the Soo Locks we of course headed back for some more beach fun.









After dinner we took one more hike down to get some icecream.






All sugared up the kids decided to play some ring around the rosy...






We had so much fun that our time in Paradise was over so quickly. On Saturday morning we made one last stop on our way out of town at the berry patch for some breakfast.






Thank you Brooklyn and Diana for having us, we had so much fun!!!