25 June 2008

Landing Near Lansing


After a very long day of airplane and car travel on Monday, we arrived at my grandmother's house in central Michigan. The kids looked at the Sears Tower and Hancock Building of Chicago through the windows, sad that we weren't going to visit them. Of course 30 seconds after merging onto the freeway Ian announced that he had to use the bathroom. But it was 3:00 and just about time for commute traffic so I made him wait until all the merges and splits were over. I'm glad I bought hand sanitizer. Ian almost refused to go where I stopped because the sink had been ripped out!

Indiana was uneventful, but full of construction. At the Michigan border we stopped at a lovely visitor center complete with an accessible playground. It had all kinds of swings, even for big kids that have mobility issues. There was also a wheelchair ramp that led onto a large middle section of the play structure. We also raced around the birch trees back to the car...Megan won the foot race, but Ian won the "following directions" race. Ah, keeping the peace:-)

My uncle took us out fishing yesterday. Ian had never been before. I was too cheap to buy a license, so I was the official hook-bater & line-straightener. Ian caught three blue gill (only one was big enough to keep) and Megan caught one. They also caught tons of damsel flies, dragon flies, and spiders that enjoyed resting on their lines and bobbers as they flew over the water. I thought everyone would sleep early, but alas--we're all still on Pacific time.

This morning we wanted to find an internet cafe (we did find one which I'm typing from), so we attached the search to seeing the State Capitol building. It's a nice building. We found the rotunda on the 3rd floor. Ian and I looked up (but not down). I chose not to look while Megan leaned over the rail to look both ways. We lucked out that both Senate and House were in recess (the kids thought that was funny). So we sat in both galleries while I explained what happened in each room. We made our way down two levels and made noises from the bottom of the rotunda to hear the acoustics. And now we're sitting on Michigan Ave. (in Lansing, not Chicago), eating pizza and typing to you while hiding from the rain.

Cheers,
Jessi

Quote of the Day

Megan: (When some of us were leaving the lake to get lunch) I'm not leaving this lake until I catch a fish.

Ian: (With the first little fish he caught) Can I keep him as a pet?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi gang! Glad you found a link to the online world in Michigan. Nana and I looked at your blog from her house last night.
Ian, I thought of you the other day when I saw an orange-red sun through the smoky skies (or maybe it was Mars...).
Megan, I'm happy that you finally caught a fish yesterday. Good for you!
Jess, the house is very quiet. I was sitting at my desk paying bills and heard a strange ticking sound. After a brief search I found the watch you gave me for Christmas. I wouldn't have noticed it unless the house was empty. :)
I'm eating zucchini and tomatoes from our courtyard. They are great! I've managed to avoid grocery shopping so far.
Love,
Kurt / Dad