Michigan - Days 4 & 5

We left Battle Creek to head to the Hart reunion on the 4th day. The reunion was held in Mendon in a bed & breakfast. It was a very old Inn with a lot of character! After a late breakfast and checkout at the hotel, we drove to Mendon. Most everyone was already there once we arrived - it was a wonderful time of seeing everyone and catching up! Most of the family is on Facebook, so we are able to keep up with each other...but it is still nice to reconnect every few years in person!

After being at the Inn for a while, people started dispursing. Some went canoeing while others played cards/games. A few others took naps! Matt & I discussed heading out to find a few more letterboxes while everyone was doing there own thing. Katie decided that she'd like to stay at the Inn, but the other 3 headed out with us. We found 3 boxes and attempted one other one with no luck. Here are the 3 kids playing on the school playground at "K-5" while Matt hunted for the box.
The cool find for this day was the Air Zoo in Kalmazoo!! This FREE place was awesome! If you are a plane buff - new & old - this is a very cool place to visit! They have 2 campuses, but we only visited one due to time constraints. The kids & Becki took a balloon ride, bought souvenirs and found a letterbox!
Will comparing his new plane to the one on display.

It was raining when we went outside. Will was so worried that his plane would get wet...

We left the Air Zoo and headed back towards the reunion. We arrived just in time - dinner time!! After dinner, we headed outside for some sharing and games. Here are a few members trying their luck at the 3 legged race.

Matt & Katie gave the race a go - Matt picked up Katie and went running!! Still didn't help though...

We had an enjoyable evening of games & fellowship with the extended Hart/Brundage Family. Everyone is so wonderful! We woke up the next morning ready to head back to Illinois. We had a wonderful time, but as with any trip, we were ready to get home. We found 3 boxes on the way home. We ended our trip with 27 new boxes and 5 exchanges, LOTS of sand in the van/hair/clothes/etc, 1200 pictures and many fond memories of places visited in Michigan. What's even better than that...those places were free!! I know that the kids will remember this trip for years to come. They'll remember swimming in the Lake, running around at the farm, the two petting zoos, playing at the children's museum, building castles in the sand, walking up the dunes, seeing super cool airplanes and visiting family (and making homemade ice cream!!). You can't BUY those kinds of memories!!