A Michigan Weekend

For New Year's this year, we headed to Michigan. We had a fantastic time there. Instead of relying solely on the hospitality of our families for entertainment, I decided to treat it like any other vacation and vet the local tourist destinations. I found some good ones!

When we arrived, it was only 4 hours until the ball was to drop. We arrived a bit late, because we had bought my mom a Clavinova in Canton. When we took it out of the van, she was so happily surprised! Naturally, we headed in and didn't even take off our coats before we were playing and singing and playing some more. It was so good to be able to share my kids' gift of music with her. She had made mounds of food, including chili made to Mark's specifications, that we combined with our shrimp and corn dogs. We chowed down and shot off fireworks until the New Year. Ethan stayed home to see some of his friends for possibly the last time before he leaves on his mission--we missed him.

The next day, we headed to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. As we were walking in, Glo slipped on ice on the sidewalk and took several layers of skin off of her nose. I didn't think it was much, but after five minutes, she was still crying and I got a good look. Bloody nose, blood ON her nose and not one scrape anywhere else. I seriously think she must have broken her fall with her nose. Thankfully, the museum turned out to be a big hit with ALL of us, and the scrape was soon forgotten.

The theme of the day was building, and there were several opportunities to learn about it. John tried to break the record of tallest building made with toothpicks and clay balls (held by a local engineer) but was unsuccessful. First, he tried to be clever and build tripod upon tripod, attempting several different variations on that theme. When that didn't work and after spending 20 minutes on the project, he had the leader bring over the measuring tape. John marked off how long the 27" was on the table and built his toothpicks in a straight line. Hoping that he could just pick it up and it would stand for the required second or two, he pulled it up. Yeah, there's a reason that the guy who holds the record is an engineer. Now if it was surgery, John would have stood a good chance of beating the record, but you know...that's probably too much for the hands-on museum.

Mark tried to break the mold of gingerbread houses made from frosting and graham crackers and decided instead to build a tall tower. It was quickly decimated by the graham cracker airplane that John had made from the ruins of his poorly-designed house.

Johannah was the best at this very coolly designed mirror contraption. One would stand facing the mirror, but only half of her body would show. She could hold her one leg such that it looked like she was levitating. She had some amazing muscles (that none of the rest of us had), built from her hours of ballet classes.

Mark tried to actually build the architectural layout of a house with very few blocks (incidentally designed by Henry Landau, the builder of my mom's home), and we all left our names in rubberbands that were stretched over nails. When it was time to go, we hadn't even seen all of the museum, and we weren't quite ready to leave.

That evening, John went and picked up his brother, Nate, from the airport. Turns out, Nate was looking to buy a van and had called John earlier in the week to get his advice. It just so happened that we were selling our van (to make room for the new Volvo) and Nate bought it. Nate flew from Minneapolis to Detroit to pick up the van and drive it home. Thanks, Nate, for making the whole process so easy for us!

Saturday, we had breakfast with John's family at Bob Evans (the food was surprisingly terrible!) and then we headed off to Kerrytown to play the bells.

Having a grandfather who was a professional organist and carilloneur, it was especially touching to me to play them. It came easily and I think all of us could have stood and played them for hours.We then raced home to pick up M-Boo to head to the movies.

Avatar is an intense movie in so many ways, but I'll let my family post about it in the comments section :-)

Sunday, everybody headed to church for Beth's baby blessing and to a brunch afterwards. Not liking potlucks, I came home and had more corn dogs and lemon cake.

Perfect weekend, right? Yes, we had some tension with families and such, but all around, it was great to be home and it was great to see some of Ann Arbor that I haven't seen in years. We left at 1 p.m. to drive back to PA, normally a 5 1/2 hour drive with the Honda Element and a rental car.

The first three hours were ideal. The sun was shining (the tank was clean...) and we were flying down the road. The kids were sleeping and I was so thankful for clear roads. Suddenly, the skies turned grey and within an hour, we were in some of the worst driving conditions I've ever seen. Snow falling fast on top of icy roads. The cars were skidding everywhere and trucks were off in the ditch. We pulled over to eat, hoping the roads would be cleared in the meantime. No such luck. It took us over 8 hours to get home, and when we did, both John's and Ethan's arms were aching from gripping the steering wheel so tightly for so long. I suffered numerous panic attacks the entire way and had to just sit in the back seat and hope that all would be well. Even John somewhere along the way said, "Man, I'm so sick of all the snow we keep driving through on our vacations. What's up with this?" My sentiments exactly. When I got home, I swore that I wouldn't even get back in a car until the spring. I've never hated snow before, but I'm thinking Arizona is looking pretty good right now!

I'm not one to post travel logs, but we had such a nice time that I don't want to forget it. Thanks, M-Boo, for all of your hospitality and for turning up the heat for us! We'll see you in the summer--does it snow in June?