The End of Summer

 Okay, so I know this is a little past the end of summer, but I'm still on the quest to entice people to visit us here in Michigan!!  :)  So I thought I'd show a few of the last things we did here this summer.
First up, BLUEBERRY picking!!!  Oh yes, happy day!  To be honest I wasn't ever a huge blueberry person until we went blueberry picking in MA.  Do you know how amazing fresh blueberries right off the bush are?? 

 If you don't, you should.  They are so delicious!!  And they just so happen to have places to pick in Michigan too.  YEAH!  So we headed out one day and got us a bucket full o' bliss!!

                                                         Just look at those beauties!!

 We also went to a few fun farmers markets.  It was so much fun to walk around and see all the delicious things there.  If we were made of money, we might have actually bought some of them!  ha, ha.  Okay, we did splurge on a few tasty things like a yummy watermelon!  But just look at that little diva next to Zack with her heart shaped sunglasses.  Love it.

 There we so many fun colors and veges that you don't see at the store, the kids had fun exploring new things.

                                    Okay, one more pic of the diva, I wish I could have gotten a closer picture, so cute.

 We also got a pass to the Fredrick Meijer Sculpture Gardens.  This place is amazing!!  It's like 130 acres of gardens and green houses plus they have this huge children's garden with all sorts of things to do.  They have a big water area shaped like the great lakes that kids can float boats in.

                                                  Kids + water= a good time had by all!

                                                 Plus they had beautiful gardens of course.

 And a giant tree house with a little tea party area.  We had to rip August away, I think he could have stayed there all day!

 And Lastly, Art Prize.  Grand Rapids has this huge art festival every year all over the down town area.  It started 5 years ago, and has turned into this HUGE event.  It's 3 weeks long and artist come from all over and set up their art and then the public can go around and explore and vote.  At the end of 3 weeks the public votes pick the top 3 winners and they win a cash prize. $200,000 I think to the winner. (The panda above is make out of old bike tires, cool eh?)

So there are huge things all over town, plus stuff set up in the museums and in restaurants and shop windows all over the city.  So you just walk around and experience it all.  It was SUPER cool.  We went 3 times walking around and I think we only saw a fraction of it all.  Plus there was such a wide variety of art that there was something for everyone.  Plus it's all free which is cool. (Above is a huge dragon that was make out of recycled parts plus it was built on 2 tractors, so it could actually drive down the road.  It was cool.)

Well that's a few of the fun stuff we did at the end of summer.   I know everyone is now booking their flights for next summer to come see us!  ha, ha