Day 6: Kalamazoo, MI
Saturday Oct. 25, 2008
In the morning, after breakfast at the hotel, we explored our options for exploring Kalamazoo. It was cold and damp, which ruled out outdoor activities, as much as we wanted to go out and hike a trail or so, the thought walking on the wet, muddied, trails while we got cold, wet and muddy, just didn’t seem to make sense. Megan was a little young for the Kalamazoo AirZoo, and while seeing an SR-71 Blackbird would have been pretty cool, the admission price was a bit steep, considering we’d only be there for about an hour. We instead decided on the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. Which, unlike what the name sounds like, is a children’s museum. Also, it offers free admission! While we were deciding on where to go, Megan played around the hotel room, and by the time we’d made it to the museum she’d fallen asleep in her car seat. So we sat in the parking garage contemplating going in or going back to the hotel. Julie went in to check it out.
See the Photos (from the KVM)
Turns out it’s really nice, they even had a area specially devoted to toddlers. Nice enough to wake up Megan to experience it. Now something we didn’t know before arriving, is that the KVM was doing a Halloween trick-or-treat mini fair, so the museum was packed with kids in costume. Megan’s costume was back at the hotel, which is just as well because we really didn’t feel like standing in line in the rain to get candy. We headed up to the toddler region and Megan had a blast. Playing with oversized waffle blocks, threading blocks, watching balls on ramps, playing with puppets and stacking blocks. She really didn’t want to leave, but we had to get back to the hotel and get dressed for the wedding ceremony. We picked up Burger King on the way back to the hotel. Got dressed and attended a wedding.
See the Photos (from the wedding)
The wedding ceremony was at the Second Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, MI. The ceremony was very beautiful and was neither too long nor too short at just under a half an hour. The bride of course was radiant, and the groom debonair. The flower girl was very deliberate placing only 2 pedals or so per step. Interestingly the pastor did not instruct Tyler to kiss the bride, so I didn’t catch that on film. Megan was not the best behaved during the ceremony, as she insisted on babbling throughout. Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view)she was not the only toddler making noise.
The reception was at Bart Hall which is part of the St. Mary Catholic Church. The reception had a fun and somewhat casual air despite everyone all gussied up. The entertainment was a Johnny Cash impersonator who sang two sets of classic Johnny Cash songs as well as provided tidbits of Johnny Cash’s life history. The buffet style dinner was very delicious with a wide variety of vegetables and meats. The Wedding cake was hand decorated by Amanda’s Aunt Boots, who lamented small imperfections that no one else noticed. The cake was very yummy and there was also three different pies as well as caramel squares and caramel apple for dessert. Megan spent the first half playing, and the second half sleeping.
After the reception, we stayed behind and helped clean up and disassemble the decorations.
See the Photos (from the KVM)
Turns out it’s really nice, they even had a area specially devoted to toddlers. Nice enough to wake up Megan to experience it. Now something we didn’t know before arriving, is that the KVM was doing a Halloween trick-or-treat mini fair, so the museum was packed with kids in costume. Megan’s costume was back at the hotel, which is just as well because we really didn’t feel like standing in line in the rain to get candy. We headed up to the toddler region and Megan had a blast. Playing with oversized waffle blocks, threading blocks, watching balls on ramps, playing with puppets and stacking blocks. She really didn’t want to leave, but we had to get back to the hotel and get dressed for the wedding ceremony. We picked up Burger King on the way back to the hotel. Got dressed and attended a wedding.
See the Photos (from the wedding)
The wedding ceremony was at the Second Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, MI. The ceremony was very beautiful and was neither too long nor too short at just under a half an hour. The bride of course was radiant, and the groom debonair. The flower girl was very deliberate placing only 2 pedals or so per step. Interestingly the pastor did not instruct Tyler to kiss the bride, so I didn’t catch that on film. Megan was not the best behaved during the ceremony, as she insisted on babbling throughout. Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view)she was not the only toddler making noise.
The reception was at Bart Hall which is part of the St. Mary Catholic Church. The reception had a fun and somewhat casual air despite everyone all gussied up. The entertainment was a Johnny Cash impersonator who sang two sets of classic Johnny Cash songs as well as provided tidbits of Johnny Cash’s life history. The buffet style dinner was very delicious with a wide variety of vegetables and meats. The Wedding cake was hand decorated by Amanda’s Aunt Boots, who lamented small imperfections that no one else noticed. The cake was very yummy and there was also three different pies as well as caramel squares and caramel apple for dessert. Megan spent the first half playing, and the second half sleeping.
After the reception, we stayed behind and helped clean up and disassemble the decorations.