Local fun

Lately we've been having some fun in the Lansing area.  One of things we did recently was to visit the Ingham County Fair.  We love the fair . . . not for the rides, but for the animals!  Being city folk, it's kind of fun to take our annual trip out to the fair to see smelly things in corrals.  Kate busted out her Bader & Sons John Deere mesh hat for the occasion.  She fit right in.

For some reason I like this shot of Kate's eyes.  Her eyes are definitely brownish in color, but subjectively I think they are such an interesting color.

For many kids this is no big deal, but for our shy 4-year-old son, this was a momentous occasion: his first fair ride.  Drew has often admired these rides but never shown any interest in them.  In fact, he's shown open aversion to going on them.  We've been patient though (with some difficulty!) and at this latest fair Drew decided to start riding on the rides.  He had a great time and we're looking forward to many, many, many more times of him asking to ride on something.  Maybe it was better when he didn't want to go on the rides! :)

In this family picture you may notice my commitment to being a good dad.  Drew wore his Mensch hat to the fair (a company that produces a product that "sucks up the poop from cows" in Drew's words), Kate had her Bader & Sons hat, and we also had a second Bader & Sons hat that the kids asked me to wear.  I felt that I fit right in at the fair in my mesh John Deere hat, especially in the agricultural areas.  It also went quite nicely with the polo shirt I had worn that day.  Wearing that hat out in public was right up there with the time I put on a toy fire helmet and drove the kids around in the car while we pretended to be a fire engine.  All three of us were making siren noises and I'm sure we looked awesome.  This time, we were quite the family at the fair in our sweet hats.

No trip to the fair is complete without petting and feeding some animals.

This is probably the most important part of animal petting at the fair, washing hands afterward!

One morning after Jana and the kids dropped me off at work, they headed across the street to the MSU Demonstration Gardens and 4-H Children's Garden.  In the picture below, Drew and Kate are in the Demonstration garden checking out the annuals.  Hundreds of varieties of annuals are planted there each year.  Jana took all these pictures, so I'm making up stories to go with them :)

Kate is checking out the vegetables in the children's garden.

This is one of my favorite parts of the children's garden.  Kate is walking down a steeply arched bridge and Drew is racing ahead to turn a turnstile that activates a pump.  The pump causes water to squirt from a frog statue.  It's so much fun! (for kids and adults)

There are also toys to climb on in the children's garden, which the kids loved.

Kate driving the train.

It almost looks as if Kate is asking this guy what he's reading.

The best plant in the children's garden, hands-down, is the sensitive plant.  When you touch it's leaves, they curl up!  It is so cool to touch them and watch the plant respond.  Never gets old.

Someone was kind enough to snap a picture of Jana, Drew, and Kate.  What a fun morning!

A week ago the four of us went camping with a group of people from church.  We camped once before with all four of us last spring over Memorial Day weekend, so it's been a while.  In the picture below Drew is playing in the playground area that was right next to our campsite.  You can see our tent in the background.  All four of us slept in there and got a good night's sleep.  It was a very successful and fun one night of camping (and it was the perfect length!).

Kate is quite the climber and fairly flew right up this ladder.  At the top she let us know she was up high in "Beaumont Tower" (a famous landmark on MSU's campus).

Kate showing off for Jana on the "balance beam."  It's amazing how any surface like this, a curb, a bench, or a parking lot cement stopper, can instantly become something to balance on and walk across.  You'll also notice that Kate is wearing her moose shirt, which Jana and I purchased on vacation in Wyoming.  The shirts that Kate and Drew got from us have become instant favorites and will probably show up in many pictures!