VACATION! PART 1: GRAND RAPIDS

We're back from our vacation! Well, actually, we've been back since Tuesday, but I had things to catch up on, nice weather outside...I know, excuses excuses. :) R, auntie, the boys, and I were in Grand Rapids Friday and Saturday, and then on Sunday we drove down to Brooklyn to the Michigan International Speedway for the nascar race (I have a lot to say about the race so I'll write about that tomorrow). This trip marks the furthest I've ever been downstate, otherwise I've only been across the bridge a couple of times to Mackinaw City. For some reason I expected it to look a lot more different than the U.P. (trees trees and even more trees), but really until we got to the city it didn't. Well except we were driving on interstates and all that and the U.P. doesn't have that (thank god-I make R do all the driving when we visit cities), but it was still lots of trees and farmland. I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe for all of it to be more city-like I guess? I dunno. :)

Our main reason for going on this vacation was to go to the race in Brooklyn, but we decided to stay in Grand Rapids because R has family living there (one of them his 98 year old great grandma!). We had planned on visiting with them, but plans change and they were all going to be attending a funeral--not a good time to visit. :(

Friday night after we arrived in Grand Rapids we went to a mini golf/family fun place. Mini golf is fun, but I wouldn't say I'm that great at it. Hehehe, but at least auntie was worse than me; it was very amusing watching her. ;D We started off trying to get C and IJ to take turns and follow the rules, but of course that didn't last long. Eventually we just let them do their thing at a hole, and then we would try to hit our balls around little boy feet. :) C was actually really good at hitting the ball with the club; he'd start at the beginning and keep hitting the ball until he got it in the hole. IJ gave up on using the club, and would just take his ball, walk it over to the hole, drop it in, and then celebrate. He thinks he's pretty awesome at golf. ;)

After golf, R and I took the boys to ride on the go-cart track. I told R to take IJ since I figured he would be the better driver and wouldn't hit anything, and would be more able to take it easy with him. I took C and actually drove a lot better than I thought I would and pretty fast, too. And yet R was driving even faster! So much for that idea. :) Both boys enjoyed it though; they like to go fast.

That night R and I left the boys in the hotel with auntie and had dinner at an awesome mexican restaurant which if I remember right was called The Cantina. I looooove mexican food, especially refried beens. I don't care what the hell they look like, they taste so good. :) This place also had probably the best strawberry margueritas I've ever had. That was an awesome dinner.

On Saturday we visited the John Ball Zoo, where IJ got to go on a camel ride with daddy. We had asked C first if he wanted to go and he said no, and as we were going to walk away IJ piped up with "Camel? Ride? Me?" So R took IJ and of course as soon as C saw that he wanted to go, too. Auntie and I reminded him that he had his chance, and he said no (he was being a little crabby because he wanted a snow cone and something out of every vending machine we passed, so I think that's why he said no to the ride). He threw a tantrum of course, but oh well.

I think the best part of the zoo were these two bears that I think understood they were "on display", because they were throwing poses left and right. It was crazy! They were like two big hairy supermodels. :) I took about ten pictures of these bears, but of course they did the best poses after I turned the camera off. Figures. :) I think the boys liked the indoor aquarium the best ("Mama! Fish! Mama! Fish!") and the zoo's wooden play train. I thought they would like the petting zoo a lot more, but IJ was kind of scared of the animals and wouldn't pet them, and C only petted a couple (although he asked me if he could pet one of the turkeys that roam around the zoo that was near the gate...um, I guess a sharp looking bird beak isn't scary to a preschooler...).

We finished off Saturday with a trip to everyone's favorite headache-inducing place, Chuck E. Cheese. Thankfully we don't have one anywhere near our house, so C only gets to go on special occasions. Once or twice a year of Mr. Cheese isn't too bad. :)

Here is the flickr set with all the Grand Rapids photos (I'll add the race photos tomorrow). I'll be back tomorrow with a recap of the Michigan race. :) (Holy hell this turned into a long ass post...)