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DayTrip: Frankenmuth

We went to Frankenmuth the other day (first time for me) to check out the sites and do some shopping at Bronner's.  Bronner's is "a very large Christmas store", or you could even call it the "Walmart of Christmas stores" and you wouldn't be too far off base.  Frankenmuth is kind of a neat town with nice little shops and Christmas lights up here and there all year long, or so I'm told.

Carson Workshops

I'd really like to go to this too.. It's Feb 8, 2006 in London. Flight should be $400-500, workshop is about $150. We could stay a week and check out the city while we're there. The workshop is on all this web stuff I'm interested in becoming more involved with. Take a look at the page to get full info.

SXSW Interactive Festival

The SXSW Interactive Festival is March 10-19 in Austin, Texas. I'd like to make the trip down there to attend a couple of days of this. I'll be in Texas for our annual Galveston trip during that month anyway, so this would be a fun thing to go to while I'm there. Who wants to go ?

An incubator of new, cutting-edge technologies, the SXSW Interactive Festival is ground zero for the world's most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators and new media entrepreneurs. Stay ahead of the curve by attending this annual gathering of the brightest minds in emerging technology.

Thanksgiving in Texas '06

Photos of our trip (so far) have been uploaded to Flickr (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3). I'll be taking LOTS of shots on this trip of just about everything we do. We made it to Texas just fine and decided to do it in 2 days instead of 3, but day 2 was kinda long because I took a nap and somehow we lost two hours. Not sure what happened there. The good news is that we got here a day early and got to enjoy some 60's weather and a liesurely Saturday afternoon going for a walk to the park, exploring the Ikea store in Frisco, and sneaking off to Border's Bookstore in Lewisville with Margaret. We just love that place. Yes, we did take the convertible (fun) but left the top on because it was a tad chilly. No, it wasn't too chilly for ME.. M does not share my enthusiasm for top-down driving under cooler weather conditions.

Z was sick last night (baked KC Masterpiece potato chips do NOT agree with him) so M stayed home with him this morning while E and I went to church. We left with plenty of time to stop at Starbucks and still be a little early for the service, but when we got there they had a sign up by the road saying they added a 3rd service and have new times... so we ended up missing the first half! Oh well.. we'll know for next week. We still got to see several of our friends there and had a good time.

After church mom cooked a roast (it was soo good) and now everyone is taking a nap. Except me. But I'm kinda thinking how comfortable that couch looks... planning on seeing a movie tonight and will post a brief review later!

FieldTrip: Woldumar Nature Center

Today we had a KidWorks field trip to Woldumar Nature Center and the MSU "bug room".  The hike on the nature trail was fun and I think all the kids enjoyed it.  After that we went to MSU and they had a pretty cool talk about insects and such, but the room was a little too warm and M got a picture of me asleep in the corner!  Pictures are here.

Biking: Portland, MI

We had a lot of fun on our bikes today in Portland.  It was a beautiful, sunny day with a high in the low 60's.  Awesome bike riding weather.  Afterwards we stopped by The Chocolate Moose (one of my favorite spots) for ice cream.. that's always a big hit with the kids and part of every trip to Portland for biking.  Pictures here.

DayTrip: Uncle John's Cider Mill

This morning we loaded up the kids and cousins and headed over to Uncle John's Cider Mill.  The kids liked seeing the cider machine grind up the apples, but they enjoyed drinking some fresh cider and eating these little donuts they had there a little more I think.  They also had a wagon ride out to their pumpkin patch and that seemed to go over well too, although I just don't understand the fascination with walking out through a pumpkin field to carry back a pumpkin when they have a whole cart of them back by the main building.  They like doing that every year though so I guess there's just an age gap thing going on here that I'm oblivious to.  Pictures are here.