Day 27--a long road

On Monday morning, we were treated to a delicious, homemade breakfast by Corinne at her and Josh's place.  We had a huge quiche and the best monkeybread I've ever had!  

 Zeke giving Aurelia a sweet "hug."

 Josh and Corinne with their dog Jojo (and perhaps what a future family photo will look like??)

 Of course, Aurelia wanted to grab the dog.

We set off after a relaxing morning for a long drive to Tulsa, OK.  Although it was a lengthy time on the road, we had a good time in the car and Aurelia did great.  Here she is with her bottle, and if you look closely enough you may be able to see her tooth!

We got to our Holiday Inn by 6:30 pm, settled in, ate some Sonic! for dinner, then hit up the pool before bedtime.

Tomorrow, we journey to Amarillo, TX which I hear is a wonderful place.  

Day 26--Indianapolis to St. Louis

We said farewell to Aunt Kelly and the young adults Sunday morning then headed out to St. Louis.  An uneventful drive on the whole.  We hit St. Louis around 1 PM.  OMG the Arch

OMG Nelly!

We didn't actually see Nelly, unfortunately.  Noel and Elissa had the coolest thing planned for us when we arrived there.  We took bikes to the nearest train station and then took the metro into town.  Noel has a "fleet" of bikes so this wasn't a problem and he also had a kid buggy thingy so Aurelia got to snuggle right up next to Ezekiel.

Zeke was a perfect gentleman, he even fed her cherrios on the ride.  Here's an action shot!

The train dropped us off right downtown where we met up with Josh and Corinne at a really cool water/sculpture park.  This was a great space; lots of people around with their children playing in water amongst (or even on) some interesting art.

I bought some water from this truck.  Crazy!  Arch in the background.  No big deal.

We walked around the downtown area for a half hour, looking at a ton of interesting architecture on the way, then hopped on the metro back to the Forest Park area.  I really liked the subway stops downtown.  Look at those tunnels, how cool is that stone work?!

Aurelia fell asleep on Zeke's arm during the bike ride back home.  Then she went to sleep in the same room with Zeke.  I didn't approve but what was I supposed to do when she started screaming that I didn't understand love?

St. Louis was not what I expected--really cool neighborhoods and way cool architecture.  It is yet another place on this road trip that I would toss into my "It's not San Francisco but if I had to live there to survive I'd manage" bucket.

Day 25--Indianapolis and NASCAR

Aurelia started off the morning with some Full House, 

         then proceeded to take a nap on Kailani.

Aunt Kelly, Phil, and I decided to explore downtown Indianapolis even though there was the big Indy 500 ("IT'S NOT NASCAR!!" Aunt Kelly kept having to remind us) parade going on.  Parking was easy to find, and we headede for the Farmer's Market.  It was a shock when we got there, though, to only see 2 tents outside and a very vacant City Market building.  The building itself was cool but had only 3 vendors open.  

One merchant explained that since no one really lives downtown the place is only packed during the weekdays and all vendors do different markets on the weekend.  He said they've been renovating inside the building so most of the kiosks are closed until the construction is done.  He gave us a few recommendations to do and see for the day.

Here are some shots from downtown:

The friendly market vendor recommended walking around a neighborhood called "Broad Ripple" near Butler University, so that's where we went for lunch.  It was a quaint strip of restaurants, bars (mostly sports bars), and little shops; and it was pretty crowded with most people opting to dine outside in the warm weather.

 There was a canal that ran along a bike path through the neighborhood.  The bike path used to be an old railroad line.  There were several shops and cafes along the bike path that were renovated old train stations and houses.  We hit up an awesome little bakery (2nd picture) that prepared and baked everything in the "house" behind their counter.  After that, we went for some pretty good ice cream at Brics.

We returned to the house a tired, but happy group.  Aurelia got spoiled...

 She loved chilling with Aunty Kelly and pulling Scooter's ears.

 Uncle Bob's home from work!

 She was mesmerized by the dogs, and Juno covered her with slobbery kisses whenever she could.

 Jen held her for a bit...

 ...and Peter held her for 10 whole seconds!

We had a great time seeing Indianapolis and spending time with family.  Thanks Aunty Kelly and Uncle Bob!

Day 24--Grand Rapids to Indianapolis

It was with a heavy heart, a heavy stomach, and another empty camera that we left Grand Rapids and the DeWits.  I don't know why we had such a hard time taking pictures over there...maybe it was because there was so much "Dutchness" that we forgot to be Japanese.

We ate breakfast at a great local joint--The Real Food Cafe--that Stephan had talked up more than the GOP talked up the Ryan plan.  At one point Stephan told us that Harold Camping was slightly off in his calculations; it was eating breakfast there that would trigger the rapture.

After a great breakfast we got the tour of Alger Park CRC from the man himself.  The basement was a kids dream.  A labyrinth of rooms and closets, staircases and coat racks.  It looks like this 24/7 at Alger Park.  People are in there all the time (on the website)

Then we were off to Indianapolis.  Nothing odd about the trip except when we stopped for gas and to feed the baby the station was assaulted by ice cream trucks.

I think there are 5 in this picture, there were at least 5 more that came in and out while Aurelia was eating.  It was a little freaky.

We arrived at Uncle Bob and Aunt Kelly's around 5 and spent the night catching up.  Aunt Kelly took half a dozen pictures with Aurelia and sent them to my dad to brag.  Kailani became Aurelia's new BFF; showering her with all dolls.

Unfortunately, no pictures again; still working out the Dutch in us from Michigan.  We finally got over it late at night.  In a great Japanese moment Beth thought it looked funny squeezing Aurelia's cheeks together because it made her eyes look slanted.

We're back baby.  We're back.

Day 23--Chillaxing

Thursday was our day to recover from staying up late all week, and by "late" I mean past 9 pm.  It was rainy AGAIN so we couldn't go outside.  SO, we drank coffee and ate delicious zucchini cranberry muffins that Khara made and got some practical things done.  Jude and Phil played with Play-doh for a while.  Laz and I played with foam blocks, which mostly meant that he put teeth marks in as many blocks as he could and knocked down any tower I built in between bites.   Khara and Aurelia chased Laz around the house.

We did leave the house at one point to take our car to a lube place.  They changed the oil and oil filter and replaced our left headlight all for under $50!!  And we stopped by the mall to get an iron-on patch for Phil's shorts and let the kids run around the play area for a bit.  On the way home, Phil and I picked up food for dinner at Meijer--it was the original Meijer.  Whoa!  We spent some time wandering around the store and counted how many different types/brands of mac & cheese there were.  Who would've thought there could be over 30!?!?

We started getting dinner ready and needed to sedate the kids, so guess what they're doing in this shot...

 Khara made us excellent drinks called "Dark and Stormys" which were very refreshing.  Aurelia helped us cook--we made black bean cakes, roasted veggie couscous, and salad.  Yum.

We sat around the rest of the evening eating Ben & Jerry's and continued not taking any pictures.  So to make up for it, here are some visual morsels from places we could've photographed in Grand Rapids:

Day 22--Grizand Rizapids

Day 22 started out with two rascal boys trying to win the affection of my daughter.

Jude figured his acts of manliness would most impress her, but Laz was on the right track of being talkative and sensitive to Aurelia. 

Aurelia rewarded Laz by staring at him for the rest of the morning and allowing him to poke her eyes.

We were gonna have a good walking tour of downtown Grand Rapids but the weather was blah. So we headed downtown to Founder's Brewery for lunch after a leisurely morning at the house.  Great atmosphere, good bear, and delicious sandwiches.

Here's some old guys playing cards, it's like a white man's Lung Fung Bakery

Here's Beth and I looking tough because we are drinking micro brewed beer.

Here's Aurelia and I looking tough because I just drank a micro brewed beer.

After lunch Khara took the boys home for naps and Stephan took us to Eerdmans and the Baker bookstore.  Eerdmans was sweet and Baker had some good deals.  Aurelia thought that was a snoozefest though.

We relaxed for a bit at the house and then the babysitter arrived and we were off to dinner and drinks.  The theme for the night ended up being "Holy Meals; Drinking and Dining in a post-Christian, post-mainline, post-industrial, post-office Grand Rapids Michigan."  During our drive to the first stop of the evening we passed at least a have dozen little business districts at intersections.  These looked like mini-main streets all 4 corners had buildings and the buildings extended about a half-block down from the intersection.  It was a really interesting way to set up a city, I'd never seen anything like it before.  Lots of potential for cool neighborhood essential shops and Stephan assured me that the city was working hard to get stores into them.  Here's  an example of one intersection (the one where we hung out for the night)

All this to say that I'm surprised by Grand Rapids.  It's a pretty cool place with a lot of potential for good urban growth, I highly recommend visiting if you're ever in the area.

So, back to dinner.  The first stop of the night was drinks and 'tizers at Brewery Vivant.  This place was a French themed brewery (so I was already in love) build inside an old memorial chapel.  Too.  Cool.

It was also really cool when Beth forgot her ID and Stephan had to run back to the house to get it.  It's okay though, he's an introvert and enjoyed the time alone.

We had some great beers and ciders (the best cider's I've ever had by a long shot) we also had two good small dishes, some duck nachos with a Brie sauce (so yummy) and some french fries with a great mayo sauce for dipping.  Good times.

Afterwards, in sticking with our theme for the night, we ate Italian food in a old monastery.

That's right.  I saw the Mona Lisa, no big deal.  This one was even cooler than the Louvre because it didn't have a lame protective glass cover.  All in all a great day.