Pioneer Village

After we left John and Martha's we spent two nights at a hotel in Flint, Michigan. We arrived sometime after lunch on Wednesday and spent the rest of the day relaxing, lazing around, swimming and watching TV (a novelty in our home). On Thursday we spent the day at Crossroads Village and Huckleberry Railroad. This was definitely an enjoyable day, as parents and children we were able to learn and take things in. The girls love anything pioneer and Matthew absolutely loved the train!!

The village is truly set up like an old village with a main street that has the general store, print shop, barber, completed with wooden sidewalks, a school house, church, upper, middle and lower class homes, blacksmith, flour mill, cider mill, ice house and much more. The best things was that at most stops they did little 10 minute presentations so that you could better understand how things were done in those days. The even better part was that they had just had their busiest days of the year a few days earlier (Thomas the Train comes to visit) and since it was a cool and rainy day the place was empty the day we were there, so we got one on one at each place we went. We really had a wonderful time, the only problem being we didn't have enough time, the village was only open from 10am - 5pm and we had a hard time fitting in all the stops/shops/demonstrations in that time.

A walk down Genesse Street. I love the tall, full trees on each side
















Stagecoach



















The print shop. Wow, what an amazing amount of work went into putting together a simple paper ... putting each individual lettering into place and then putting each individual piece of paper through the ink press. I had heard how it was done before, but to actually see it and realize what a slow and tedious job it would have been was a whole new realization.




































The blacksmith had many more jobs besides just fixing horseshoes as you always seem to see on TV. Since they don't need to fix horseshoes at the Village they instead design different items like candlestick holders and such that you could purchase.


















The highlight of the day for Matthew was the train ride on the Huckleberry Railroad. The steam locomotive is so slow that it is called the Huckleberry Railroad because you can jump off and pick some huckleberries and then jump back on the train and carry on with your trip. This railroad began operating in 1857 and the trains currently used on the track are from the early 1900's. It was a good reality check to see how they travelled long distance back then ... and to think that they thought it was fast. This "rough" ride is no comparison to the comfort and luxury of our cars. This ride resulted in Rob back in the van for a nap due to the motion causing him to feel ill again.


Ready to roll on one of the coaches.

















While Matthew was very excited about a ride on a "Thomas" train his excitement turned to aprehension once we started going and he wasn't so sure about this idea anymore. He hung on for dear life, especially when I opened the window to take some pictures.


















The locomotive that took us for our 40 minute ride.



















Rob spent some time (as in long enough that we carried on without him after waiting "patiently" in the rain for some time) talking with the brake man ... the mechanic in him shining forth. He learned lots of neat stuff and was quite fascinated by these old engines.

















After our ride we checked out some of the other coaches and of course had a look at the caboose.








































While Rob was busy talking to the brakeman we carried on to the Opera House to watch a magic show. I'm not sure where the magician and magic show fit in with the Village theme, but it was a great show, so we'll forgive them for not keeping the olden day theme consistent :)

Once again it was nice that it was a quiet day as both girls were able to go on stage to be part of the magicians show.

Marietta video taping Rebecca on stage























Rebecca was part of a rather funny act where the magician kept pretending to hand her the wand to wave over the bag and make the cloth disappear, but as she would reach out to grab it he would keep talking and pull the wand away. Since Rebecca is a bit of a anxious/nervous person I felt a bit bad for her at first when she didn't realize what he was doing, and then when she clued in and didn't know what to do. But she had good laughs about it later


















Since the magic wand was not doing the magic of making the cloth disappear the magician kept asking for a bigger wand and it was Rebecca's job to wae it over the bag (that the magician is holding in the picture). As you can imagine she had a bit of a struggle waving this one :)
























Marietta also got her chance on stage doing a card trick.








































Another part of the Village is the Genesee Bell which is an old paddlewheel riverboat, similiar to those used on the Mississippi River. Due to the time restriction of getting everything done in a day we opted not to go for a ride on the riverboat but did take a chance to have a peek at it. Matthew called it a combine (because of how the paddle turns like a bean header)


















We all found the Toy Barn very interesting. It was filled with various toys that children (and adults I'm sure) would play with in the olden days. Some of them were quite interesting and you were allowed to play with them all and give them a try. The kids (including the biggest kid in the family) all spent a fair amount of time trying out the stilts. Rob actually managed to get a round a bit on them.

An old buckboard wagon ... just like in Little House on the Prairie

At the barber shop ... hmm ... a girl in the barber shop?? The back of the barber shop was the doctors office since in many towns the barber also acted as the doctor if there was not an official doctor. They also explained that if there was a doctor it was often only the men that would see a doctor and not so much the women .

It was a busy and long day and also a very nice day ... even if it did drizzle most of the day. We had barely left the parking lot and Matthew was sound asleep, proudly wearing his new conductors hat.

Dutch Village

As mentioned in my previous post, we went to the Dutch Village in Holland, Michigan for a day. Rob and I had been already when we were first married, but we figured the kids would enjoying seeing it as well. We went with John and Martha and six of their kids.

We started off by watching some "dutch" dancing to a very old street organ from the Netherlands. The kids also got a chance to learn and try out a dance but I didn't manage to get any good pics of that, so the one with them standing with the dancers afterwards in front of the street organ will have to suffice.

The kids had to clamour up and climb on each horse and buggy model at the park making sure that I took a picture of them on each one and with each of them driving. I'll just post one :)

It's hard to see on here that it is Marietta being delivered by the stork. I have a picture of Rob sitting in that same delivery pouch some 10 years ago ... cept I'm not at home right now so I can't post a copy of it to go with this one.

The Old Women who Lived in the Shoe :) ... with the little boy who slid down the slide. That's what I think of when I see this shoe, but I realize that's it more the idea of a dutch wooden klompen to play in/on.

Ja, such a cute Dutch family, eh! ;)

Here is the ride that ruined our holidays, the Swing Chair Ride. Well it wasn't quite that bad, but it definitely put a damper on our holidays. Rob forgot that he is 10 years older then the last time he went on this ride. He kept saying afterwards how he had been on it before and had not had any issues. The ride swings you around at great speeds ... just looking at it makes me dizzy. A few of us were wise enough to not even attempt it. Of the rest ... only two had any sort of desire to ride it again, Rebecca and Wayne, and indeed they did ride it again, several times. Then there was Rob, he wasn't feeling so great afterwards, and about an hour later he gave up and went to the van to try sleep it off for a bit. This is pretty much how the rest of our holidays went. Rob had to lay down from time to time because he was dizzy and inbalanced. He could not turn around in any sort of circle (e.g. packing up the hotel room - small room, not much space, constantly turning around) and was very quickly exhausted, having to sleep lots. We assumed the ride had given his vertigo and thankfully it went away after almost two weeks and he was back to himself before he started school. But it did put a bit of a damper on our holidays. No more swing rides for Rob ... no more rides for Rob!

There were a variety of animals that the kids could pet and hold and even take for a walk ... a true petting zoo. We could take the goats for a walk ... or they take us for walk, or refuse to take us for a walk. They could pick up the little bunnies and hold them. They could pet the lamma

This was Matthew's highlight of the day, the Peddle Pumper Cars. He went on this ride many times and definitely got his workout in the scorching heat. They had to pump the handle back and forth to make the train go. I didn't think Matthew would make it around the first corner, let alone around the track ... and most definitely not the number of times he went around. He loved it and still gets all excited whenever he sees pictures of it. Matthew is not a child who likes rides, he likes to be in control of what is going on and does not like any sort of ride or entertainment where he feels a lose of control, he also doesn't seem to like much motion as recently I had to stop taking our "new" backroad way to get into Hamilton because he could not handle the hills on the road. This type of ride was definitely his style.

The girls were actually too big for the ride since there knees were in the way of where they had to pump, but one of the employees let them on once so they got their chance at it also.

Also in the village were different stops where you could stop and watch them make wooden shoes or delft items or cheese or candles or watch a video about the Netherlands. We stopped at each demonstration to see what we could learn and toured around the various shops in order to cool down from the heat.

I think this one fits Matthew :)

Room to grow!

The candle shop was amazing to watch. You can see her making a candle here and i the background you can see all the different coloured candles. The one she was making was a variety of white and beige colours. They dip the candle wick in about 30 different wax colours/layers according to how they want the candle to look and then they have about 10-15 minutes while the wax is hot to cut and shape the candle. Too bad the candles cost around $45 to buy, at least they make it a bit more worthwhile since they make them so that you can place a tea light in the top and you do not actually burn the beautiful candle away. (You can see a better picture of themand how they are made here)

Michigan

Our holidays this past summer consisted of a trip to Michigan. Hard to believe that was already four months ago. As is usual with our holidays the weather wasn't totally cooperative, but overall it did not put a damper on our fun as we only got rain one day. The fact that we never have a holiday without rain might have something to do with the time of year that we take our holidays (the last week before school starts), which is hurricane season along the east coast and often means we get the remains of hurricane weather. But for us this is the week that works best as it gives us some family time as well as "down" time before the kids and Rob return to school each September. Our original plan was to leave Friday after supper and make it to our destination, Rob's brother's in Grand Rapids, by midnight. Hoping the kids would sleep and this would allow us plenty of time on Saturday. But come Friday afternoon we were not ready to leave and given we were spending more time then usual (not that we do this that often) in Grand Rapids we figured there wasn't really such a rush to leave and sleep might be a good idea. So instead we woke up early Saturday morning ... actually the girls woke us up and good thing because between both mine and Rob's alarm neither of them went off, and we were on the road by 6am. After a bit of a stop at the border, something we had expected due to Rob previously being declined entrance to the States (no real fault of his, just one of those days where they were one high security and someone was on a power trip), we were on our way again and we made good time, getting there shortly after lunch. Cousins: Lauren, Marietta, Rebecca, Tonya The reason for the picture :) Tonya and Lauren thought Marietta and Rebecca had pretty neat hair-dos and so that night after their showers I did their hair also.

We spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out, relaxing, catching up and trying to stay cool during the heat wave that had just set in after a relatively cool week beforehand

Rob and Leanne having a "sword" fight

Matthew is our TV and computer fanatic, something we are constantly struggling with at home as he has a hard time getting past his desire to play on the computer, but once he does and he focuses on something else then he plays very well. So he quite enjoyed the fact that they played lots of Nintendo and Playstation etc (whatever they're all called) and that he was given an opportunity to try also Mario was one of his favourites Jody was often his companion in the computer room Sprinkler fun after a scorching hot day of 33C (don't forget to factor in the humidity) ... oh how I wish we had a well again.

Aunt Martha tried to encourage Matthew to play in the sandbox because she knows I'm not a sand fan :), but he wasn't all that much interested in it ... until after some sprinkler fun ... then he had some second thoughts about Aunt Martha's idea and decided the sandbox was great fun inbetween sprinkler cool-downs

On Monday we spent the day in Holland, Michigan at the Dutch Village (seperate post on that to come) and since Tuesday was another sorching hot day we decided to "hibernate" a bit indoors and not tackle the heat for another day. Martha and I went to a thrift store sale and Rob and John went book shopping ... or should I say Rob did .... I'm not sure if Rob was more excited about the trip so that he could relax and visit or so that he could finally do some book shopping in Grand Rapids which he had always heard had such great deals. I'd say he struck some okay deals and we went home with a load of books.

On Wednesday it was time for us to start heading in the direction of home for a few days of family time. We left mid-morning and made it to our destination of Flint, Michigan in good time. Our next two nights were spent at a hotel in Flint where we relaxed and enjoyed some time together as family and spent a day at the Pioneer Village (seperate post to come on that also). It was a very nice time together.

Pool and hot tub fun Someone had forgotten their waterwings and so Matthew gave them a try ... he LOVED it, to say the least!! :) The next day we went looking at some local stores for waterwings ... but it being the end of summer who would think that people are actually still swimming and not thinking about back to school shopping ... needless to say we didn't have any luck.

Still catching up ... more to follow soon.