A Capitol Day

I will admit that sometimes my ambitions get the better of me.  This week is a prime example - I had SO MUCH that I wanted to fit in.  But like I said yesterday after last week, all the excitement so far this week and our big upcoming trip, I decided to scale down our trip to Lansing just a bit.  But we had quite the adventure nonetheless!  We checked out the Capitol Building, spent a fun couple of hours at the Michigan Historical Museum and had a fun picnic along side the Red Cedar River.  I'll 'show' you below :)

We had a Michigan mail call today!  My friend from high school, Patti now lives in Pentwater, and she was kind enough to put together some items and send them for the kiddos.  Our list of places on our map for Michigan is definitely dominating the complete list now!   Many thanks to Patti for her help - I especially loved the picture of the sunset on Lake Michigan.  Hope to see that ourselves this weekend!

Dinner tonight was made up of two Michigan favorites Little Caesar's Pizza and Vernor's!  Founded by Mike and Marion Ilitch (who also own the Red Wings and the Tigers, by the way!) and famous for it's "Pizza! Pizza!" catchphrase - how can you possibly beat $5 for dinner?  And if you've followed along with the blog before, you know that Vernor's, created in Detroit in the 1860's, (and a component of the Bean's favorite Boston Cooler!) is the oldest surviving ginger ale sold in the United States.  You can imagine there weren't really any complaints around here tonight.

And we FINALLY made it to Guernsey Farms Dairy tonight.  There were so many options to choose from, but everyone finally decided as follows

Grant: Salted Caramel Turtle Swirl (the salted caramel was AMAZING!)
Kristi: Orange Sherbert ( I really wanted lemon, but Noah wanted to try the orange and the only way he would get a different flavor ice cream was if I promised he could try the orange)
Noah: Creme de Novi (this was MY favorite - creme de menthe ice cream with chocolate flakes)
Mikayla: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

It was excellent and well worth the wait!  I think Detroit's on tap for tomorrow - so stay tuned!  Until then...

We arrived in Lansing!

The Historical Museum

A shot of the Capitol Dome

They made it!

Apparently part of the capitol is under construction

Even funnier - they were operating completely off generator power today!

The rotunda from the bottom

Looking at the battle flags

One level up

The House Chamber

The House

Future Representatives

The view from the highest level you can go to in the rotunda

Outside the historical museum

The other side of the Museum

All kinds of crops from Michigan

Writing their favorite season and why

Noah standing on a mastadon footprint

A museum worker showing us how they loaded cannons at Fort Detroit

Trying out a wagon seat on an original Michigan road

Going into the Copper Mines

 A log mover

A classroom from the 1890's

I think they look pretty good!

A Ford assembly line

Blurry - but this is them at a 1920's movie house

A Beauty salon from the 1920's - think you'd use it Aunt Sarah?

Mikayla the Rivetor

Noah too!

A 1950's Michigan house

Mommy likey

Rockin' Noah

Rockin' Bean

Lunch!

Playing!

Look at the baby ducks we found on the river!

Our loot from Lansing!

Mail call!

Reading their postcard

Thanks for the Pentwater information, Patti!

Yum!

The Bean really wanted Boston Coolers but I told her dessert was going to be even better tonight

We made it!

It's hard to tell, but there were actual little chocolate turtles in Grant's ice cream

Think she liked it?  (You should have seen the rest of her.  There was not a part of Mikayla that did NOT have ice cream on her)