Impression 5, a Third Visit, in as Many Weeks

For Emily and William's first Friday of summer, we went to Impression 5, again!  Grace asked if we could invite Heleena, and since she lives so close, and there would be no additional cost, since we can bring guests, I said yes, and Heleena came along with us!  

I had also invited Avia, at the time she was unsure of her schedule, but she was able to join us too!  We missed Alice who still has another week of school left!!!

We arrived twenty minutes early, and the parking lot was empty! They were playing four corners while waiting.

Emily got a little wet. oops.

The bubble room was pretty empty, and by 1030, we realized that there were no field trips there.  So, the kids were there with only a smattering of other little kids and their caregivers!

William spent 80% of his visit in the bubble room!

My mom had parked and walked to meet us, anticipating a full parking lot, so she and Emily left for a while to explore the downtown path and get her car before the parking meter ran out.

We went to two pop up events.  The first was finger printing, which they thought was okay.  They enjoyed the fish building way more!

I told them that if a small child came over, they had to immediately stop and surrender the space to the  one for whom the space is designed. They played longer than I thought they would, and no little kids came over while they were there.

Juliet blew a bubble...

...and William caught it!

William made a 'snowman.'

By 1230 everyone was winding down, so once Emily got back, we loaded up the car to go home.

It was a nice change for the twins to have a friend along, and they enjoyed getting to stay until they were done!  I think it will be a few weeks before we go back again, but that's the fun thing about summer, you just never know!

After we dropped off Heleena, I took the kids to pick out donuts for national donut day!  QD had their donuts on sale for $1 each!  This is the pile that made it back home, with one for Daddy and one for Alice since they were still at work and school.  The pickings were pretty slim, but we were all just happy to have something.

I'm glad we did a 'stay until you're done day' without Alice, because she prefers events that have an end time, and so the next time we go, it should be easier for everyone to be happy!

later days

edit 6-8-25: backdated for continuity.

Snow

January and February were super snowy, but March was good to us, and we only got dustings and a little bit of ice!  I think the kids might have had a snow day for one or two of these, but definitely not for all four!  = (

2-12-25:

2-13-25:

2-16-25:

2-18-25:

Melting snow made some pretty icicles!

The salt on the sidewalk caused the slight amount of snow to form little donuts on the sidewalk!  This was the first time I'd seen it, and we've been here eight winters now!

An 8, for our eight Michigan winter.

The temperatures are swinging up and down right now, so we are having some beautiful 70 degree days, and some 'snowy' below freezing days, but nothing is sticking.  I'm ready for some steadier, warmer, temperatures for sure!

later days

Country Mill

Today Emily had went over to hang out with one of her friends.  Said friends' house was just down the road from Country Mill.  We hadn't been in several years, so I told everyone that when I went to collect Emily, everyone was going to come so that we could go take some pictures!

Well, when looking up their closing time, it was actually two hours earlier than I anticipated, so we had to collect Emily an hour early from her friends'.  

In my head we would go take the pictures with the sunflowers, everyone would spend their $5 on cider and/or donuts and we would be good to go.  

How it actually played out was that an hour was not long enough, and everyone wanted to ride the tram and play on the playground!!!  

The pumpkin's growth looked like a mini pumpkin!

This would probably be more meaningful if we went yearly, but it's still nice to see them measured!

Grace was carrying around a big ole' purse because she wanted a picture with her polaroid! (see below)

But I did get my pictures!  Group shots and individual poses. <3

I think the kids had a lot of fun playing around while I snapped some pictures.  Here they are showing Alice how to "Mew."

Butterfly!!!

Super proud of this one, no filter, no cropping! (But also no Alice, so what are you gonna do?)

I liked all of those pictures, but saved the best for last:

Once I snapped my pictures, we stopped briefly at the playground before rushing over to the cafe/store.  $5 went surprisingly far here still, I don't think any of mine spent all of their cash!

When I was talking Billy into coming (I was going to take the kids alone, just for the pictures) I told him it would be cheaper if he didn't come, but we would prefer to have him there!  A pie, gallon of cider, and a few other culinary delights later, he laughed and said I was right. lol

Not the biggest fan of pictures of myself, but since I took a selfie with literally everyone in the family, I am including them here.  Hopefully future me will be less critical of present me. = )

It was such a fun outing, we will be going back next year, hopefully with a little more time!

Oh, and a picture of Grace's picture, of course!

later days