Red Flannel Festival 10/2/10

Every 1st weekend in October, Cedar Springs has their Red Flannel Festival. Every year we head down and go to the craft show, for some lunch......
usually a midway ride or 2 (we didn't this year we didn't because it was cold and raining off and on), and then we watch the parade. Samantha loved the marching bands this year. Every time a music group cam by she started marching.
The parade was right smack in the middle of nap time, so she decided to have a nap with Daddy instead. ;-)
This year seemed extra cool and windy, so, even though we had fun, not quite as much as some years past.
After the parade we came home for some thawing out. ;-) Samantha had to check over the candy loot from the parade. ;-)
It was a fun, cool, windy afternoon. We look forward to doing it again next year, just maybe with some warmer weather. i wonder if anyone has ever thought of moving it a few weeks earlier for a better chance at nice weather? ;-)

Fall Fun at Klackles 9/26/10

Every year we head to Klackles Orchard at least one time. All the way there Samantha talked about apples, apples, apples. So the first thing we did was get on the apple-picking wagon and go get some apples.
We got LOTS of apples!! We each get one of these bags to fill with apples we pick included in our entry fee.
After we got done picking apples, we headed to the store and got some cider and donuts to eat. YUM!! I usually take a picture of the kids eating their donuts, but we were being swarmed by so many wasps that i wasn't able to get pictures of that part. :-( Luckily no one got stung!
After our yummy snack we headed back to the Family Fun Farm part. This apple ruler is a yearly picture ritual.
Marc has always loved riding the barrel car train. We were excited that Samantha was big enough to ride it with his this year! :-)
As soon as we got done with the apples Samantha kept asking abut the "punkin ride". So after some fun in the family area we boarded the Enchanted Pumpkin Ride.
Do you think Samantha was excited to be on the pumpkin ride? ;-)
We thought an almost empty pumpkin patch would be a good spot for some cute pictures.
We usually get 1 big pumpkin to carve and a few smaller pumpkins to paint. Well, I am going on a field trip next week to a pumpkin patch where I will get a small pumpkin and in a a few weeks Marc is going ( and I am accompanying) to a different pumpkin patch where we will both get small pumpkins. So, since it looked like our status on getting small pumpkins was good, we just picked the big pumpkin for carving.
It was a cool, breezy day, but a very fun, fall-filled afternoon! :-)

ArtPrize 9/25/10

This weekend we went to the 2nd Annual ArtPrize. Last year was a big enough success that it happened again this year. Art Prize is an art contest. The artists are required to find a venue to host their art and then when it is time, we the public walk around and see lots of good, and some bad, art. For the first week we get to vote "thumbs up" if we like it, and "thumbs down" if we don't. After a week, the top ten pieces of art that got the most "thumbs up" are published. We the public then vote for our favorite. The piece of art with the most votes wins $250,000!!!

This year there were some pieces displayed at the Meijer Gardens, so we drove out there before we headed downtown.There are pieces of art scattered ALL over downtown. In addition to the pieces scattered around downtown, there and exhibition halls where there are many pieces displayed in the same building. These are just a few of the ones we saw.
I liked this one because the kids got to get involved in the art. The wall was covered in felt and each of the little colored squares had strips of Velcro on it. The kids were encouraged to go up to it and rearrange the squares and change how the art looked. :-)
The artist of this piece was nice enough to offer to take our family picture in front of his piece.
We took LOTS more pictures of art. You can see them on our pictures site pictures.stoufer.com.
I thought I wasn't going to enjoy myself, but to my surprise, I did. We are planning on going back down next weekend to see more. :-)