Summer Vacation 2009 - Traverse City

Last Monday we left for our week long summer vacation. Our first stop was Traverse City (MI:). We stayed there until Thurs. afternoon. The Cherry Festival was going on, so we spent a lot of time there.


We went to Bob Evans for dinner on Monday (it was right by our hotel). Rebecca ordered off the kids menu for the first time...grilled chicken and broccoli. Mommy and Daddy each tried some cherry bread with their dinner. Monday evening we had our first dip in the pool at our hotel. Rebecca was terrified at first (as we kind of expected). She gradually got used to it. Then we tried her floaty...another crying spell. But again, she got used to it. And did start actually enjoying it :)



Tuesday we went to The Cherry Connection...a local farm that specializes in growing cherries. They are associated with MSU for research. They also grow a few other fruits...like grapes, apples and pears. They had a small petting zoo (animals from other local farms). Rebecca really liked all the animals...except the goose...it honked at her, made her fall over and gave her a good scare. She did like petting the little chicks. They also had a huge assortment of cherry products to taste from local vendors. We sampled all kinds of stuff, including cherry ice cream, cherry coffee, cherry peanut butter, cherry pie, cherry lemonade, cherry preserves, cherry sausage, dried cherries and cherry muffins. Then we went on a short tour (wagon behind a tractor) of the farm and learned all about cherries. It was a great way to kick off our experience at the Cherry Festival! It would have been nice if it had been a little warmer (low 60's...bundled in jackets :P), but it was still fun..and yummy!! When we got back to town we took a quick walk through the main cherry festival area. In the afternoon we spent some time at a park and biking around town. Rebecca is becoming quite the climber from all of her time spent at playgrounds lately :) For dinner we ate at a local restaurant, Schelde's. We just relaxed in the hotel in the evening.



Wed. morning we spent more time in the pool. Rebecca tried the life jacket she borrowed from her cousin Carson. It just made her tip backwards, so we didn't use it very long. Then Daddy and Rebecca played in the sand at the hotel for a while. And we played on the play set and fed the ducks some Cheerios :) Then Rebecca had a bath at the hotel...not her favorite thing for sure. She seems to be getting more and more scared of water instead of liking it more. We had a quick lunch at Wendy's before nap time. Rebecca had her first taste of a few fries. She mostly just held them but didn't really want to eat them :P She scarfed down her leftover chicken and broccoli. That's our girl :) In the afternoon we went to the Cherry Festival. We started at the kids area where they had crafts, face painting, live music, a magician, food, fire trucks and a playground. Then we headed to the main area. We watched some pie eating contests and shopped for souveniers (Rebecca got a Cherry Festival t-shirt). And Rebecca got to ride the merry-go-round. She did well as long as she had a good grip on Mommy :) We sampled more cherry products and other local foods and bought a few things...cherry cabernet preserves, chocolate cherry sauce, almond butter and chocolate butter toffee peanut butter. Yum!! We ate dinner at the festival and did some more walking around. In the evening we relaxed and did some packing.

Thursday morning we packed up and headed up to the Old Mission Point Lighthouse at the tip of the penninsula. We were able to go up the lighthouse. Pretty neat. We had a picnic lunch and headed back to town to play at the park for a bit. On our way we stopped at a winery to pick up a couple bottles of local wine...including a special Cherry Festival wine. Then we left for St. Ignace when it was time for Rebecca's nap.

We had a great time in Traverse City!!! And the Cherry Festival was so much fun! Hopefully we'll make it back there some day. Unfortunately it was too cold to spend any time at the beach. But we still had some fun in the water indoors :)