I’ve never enjoyed grocery shopping but Jungle Jim’s might be the store to convert me.
Getting Dirty For Clean Water- My 1st Mud Race
My first mud race was back in ’96 during the first week of college. Little did I know that I would be joining two friends from college in another mud race 16 years later.
Amish Paradise- Great Amish Breakfast in West Michigan
Our family shared an experience that took us back to a simpler time. We traveled about an hour north for an old fashioned Amish breakfast. We found out about it through word of mouth. There is no website or phone number to call. You just show up. At first the directions I was given were by roads and landmarks. I was relieved when I received a gps address. That’s the only way we would have found it.
After several dirt roads and an obvious change in residents we finally found the house.
At first we didn’t know where to go or if this was really where you could get breakfast.
We were told to go through the door.
We immediately saw the room with tables set up.
Basically you just sit down and they will bring you want you want to eat.
You have the typical breakfast food options. We choice the best of both worlds with the “Sarah Special.” It gave you a sample of everything.
It was also served with my favorite breakfast food, bisquits and gravy.
This southern girl was not disappointed. The homemade bisquits and gravy were amazing. In fact everything was so good. All of the kids were happy.
The food is all cooked on a wood burning stove.
It was such a great experience for our family and friends to have with a subculture we don’t encountered very often.
The meals are by donation to help with the cost. We like to give a little more because this is helps them do what they do….and it’s one less meal I had to cook. We also purchased some cinnamon rolls on the way out.
They also sell homemade rugs and a few other items.
There is a cheese factory down the road that we stopped at on the way back.
They don’t make cheese on the weekends but you can still stop by and try samples before you buy.
I highly recommend taking some time to appreciate the Amish way of the life.
If you live in the Grand Rapids area and want to visit, click on this image and print this card when you go.
You can visit the Farm Country Cheese House site for more details of their daily operations.
Please comment if you have found an Amish place that you enjoy visiting near where you live.
Family Circus Class with Cincinnati Circus Company
I think watching the 80’s/90’s tv show “Circus of the Stars” planted the seed in my mind that anyone could try being a circus star. So I tried trapeze with friends…..
………and then we tried trapeze as a family.
So then the logic was that if your family is a circus already …might as well learn a few skills to impress the neighbors.
Fly Fishing Adventure
One of the perks of having friends with diverse interest is when you get to share one of their dream adventures. I recently joined my friend on an 8 hour guided fly fishing trip. This experience was WAY out of my comfort zone. My friend and I both operate from different sides of appreciating nature.
The Adventure List Made Simple
Check out my adventure list so far and get inspired to try something new too!
*Just click on what you want to read more about.
Classes I’ve tried
Winter Activities
On, In and Under Water
Inside Fun
Participating in Roller Derby Practice
Outdoor Fun
Becoming a Guiness Book of world Record Holder
Working with a community garden
TV Shows
Tv show extra for Travel Channel’s “Bert the Conqueror”
Live taping of The Oprah Windfrey show with the cast of The View
Races
Animals
Group teambuilding/ awareness exercises with horses
Mega Deal Destination
Gap Clearance Center (this is not an “outlet”)
Specific Destinations
University of Cincinnati football stadium (open to the public)
University of Michigan football game
Hittsville, USA (Motown Museum)
Greenbrier Hotel, Sulphur Springs, WV (bunker tour)
Food
Screams ice cream Hell, Michigan
Culinary School Restaurant lunch
Cool Annual Events
Cultural Event
Adventure Articles I’ve written for GRkids.com
Tallship ride (Michigan Maritime Museum)
Sleeping on a submarine (USS Silversides Museum)
Sand Dune ride (Saugatuck Dune Rides)
Underwater hockey (Holland Aquatic Center)
Car races (Berlin Raceway)
Train excursion (Coopersville and Marne Railroad)
Cable wake boarding (Placid Wake Park)
Stand up Paddleboarding (Wet Mitten Surf Shop)
Pure Barre exercise class
Walk like a ….ZOMBIE?
My husband and I recently participated in a zombie walk. We are not the type of people who normally like to dabble with the dark side but I was really curious to check out what this experience was all about. I honestly had never even heard of a “zombie walk” until I saw promotions about one that was going on downtown. Our kids were spending the night with their cousins so we had to make the most of a kid free night. You can’t waste free childcare when you get the opportunity!
We drove downtown to check out our first zombie walk.
They were supposed to meet at a plaza and then parade all over downtown. We got there a few minutes late but some bystanders told us which direction they were headed. We had to speed walk to catch up but found the group. There were all varieties; friends, families, musicians, all decked out as different types of zombies. We observed them from a rooftop parking garage and then decided to go in for a closer view.
We followed behind them for a while walking behind the tuba zombie.
We walked several more blocks behind them so that we could get a get look at all of the costumes.
So as we were on our way back to the car, we got inspired by the simplistic costume a dad and his two boys had. Basically a white t -shirt cut up over their clothes. I knew of another zombie walk going on at a college campus at 10:30 that night. That gave us enough time to create an outfit and get there. My husband agreed to participate and the price of free was perfect. We couldn’t waste a kid-free night just sitting at home watching tv and we didn’t have the budget to go out to eat or do something else. So why not be undercover parents, who’ve been married 13 years with two kids, pose as zombie college students.
We were starting to get into the idea of crashing a college zombie walk. We began looking for old clothes to shred up. My husband found an old t shirt with a pre existing hole. I was struggling to find something. I generally like my clothes so it was really hard to find something to dice up. After about 10 minutes of searching I remembered my mother in law had a bag of clothes in the car that she was giving to goodwill. I figured they were fair game. After dicing up our clothes to zombie level, it was hair and make up time. This is were my husband put me to shame. He came out of the bathroom with a better make up job than me.
I teased my hair to get the full effect and we were ready to go.
We had to laugh at the idea of our kids finding out what their parents were doing while they were gone. We got to the campus a little early and parked at the nearby campus housing. We just kind of hung out in the parking lot waiting for everyone to get to the meeting location. There were busses that were also shuttling people over from another part of campus. I would say we were the only people there who didn’t at least no someone else.
We found some stranger to take our picture and then observed the other zombies around us.
There was a Snow White, an Osama BinLaden, meat processors, nurses and regular college student zombies to give a lot of variety.
We waited for a while for the other buses to get there and then started our walk. Lots of the zombies were totally getting into character and even running up to people on their doorsteps. Some even went into a few apartments if the door was open from them observing the crowd.
A car load of students was leaving the area and they were immediately swarmed by zombies. No doubt it would have felt very creepy and claustrophobic, seeing hundreds of people surround your car. They were instructed to move away from the vehicle after it started to get out of hand.
We walked around for about 20 minutes. It was SO COLD! We were ready to go when it was over. Overall we were glad we got out of our comfort zone and did something we would have never imagined doing. It was fun to dress up, step into character and pose like college students.
Ever wanted to try a zombie walk?
Check out this site for an upcoming event near you.
Many zombie walks across the nation are used as fundraisers to help local food pantries and check out worldzombieday so you can be on your best zombie etiquette.
Adventures In Exercise – Why it took me so long to try a Spin Class
“I’m soooo sorry, Are you ok?,”- that’s what the old lady in my hydrorider class said to me after she accidently dropped her 55lb bike on my head as I was helping her get it into the water. I was fine but had to hold an icepack on the side of my face for the whole duration of the water “spin” class.
We had joined our gym a few years ago and it took me the longest time to even try a group class. I always thought the women that attended those were genetically superimposed with the DNA of superheros. I was so intimidated to stare at myself in front of a mirror with a bunch of other women doing exercises or dance moves that looked ridiculous.
Spontaneous Date Night
I recently saw an article in a Grand Rapids magazine featuring a local artist who lives downtown who creates libre inspired art featuring women. I had to laugh out loud because we went to his loft on a spontaneous date night. Our kids were invited to spend the night at their cousins last second around 8ish. I immediately began researching fun options because I was not going to waste a kid-free night. It’s a beautiful thing not to pay for childcare. So after checking out the options, I narrowed it down to an indy band playing at what seemed to be a Mexican restaurant down town. It was close to a sketchy area of town but that doesn’t really phase us. We went to a college in the ghetto in Dallas where we witnessed our first drive by together while walking on the track. Romantic huh?
I had written down the address along with the name of the restaurant but we could not seem to find it. So finally I asked a group of people inside what look like a store front. Turns out we had crashed a mustache party complete with mustache hors d’oeuvres. The hostess guided us thru her party to the back door and told us he lived upstairs.
So now we are going to someone’s home! We had to go up the stairs anyway to leave to our car so we decided to follow the music to the door instead. It was really awkward because the music was low key and we walked into someone’s loft living space. We were charged $5 at the door and told we could sit or stand wherever we wanted.
We stood for a while and then sat on the couch. It was a true bachelor pad with true bachelor furniture; backless couch cushions in all. As we sat packed in closely to a room full of strangers, we couldn’t help but notice that -1. most people seemed to know at least a few people there and- 2. there were a lot of libre style canvases all over the walls.
So here we are sitting in a strangers ‘s home, on his couch, listening to a band we’ve never heard of while gazing at art with women in wrestling masks. It was comical and awkward to say the least. After about an hour or so there we gradually slipped out of his home back to our house. We did have an unpredictable date night to change up the temptation to do something less out of the box. I’m glad we went anyway and no doubt will think about our date night every time I watch Nacho Libre with our boys.
Need some creative date ideas? Check out date ideas