We drove to Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids and to meet an friend of mine and her kids. We would be staying with them in Kalamazoo for the next two days. We spent several hours wandering around the beautiful grounds of the gardens and especially the children's area. There were mazes, tree houses, and a log cabin. There was art and nature all around us!
Check out that serious face trying hard to beat me!
A big favorite was a water feature with a scaled version of the great lakes. Some of the kids loved getting wet on this hot day! The kids already started grouping themselves within an hour.
One of the newer features of the park was the Japanese Garden. We had a fantastic 10 year old tour guide Ella leading us through the winding paths. 
Next up we headed to the sculpture garden. I think my kids' favorite may have been Da Vinci's horse.
It was pretty hot and my kids were getting hungry so we ended our trip with a quick stop to the gift stop and went to find some lunch.
How nice it is after planning so many days on the road to have a personal tour guide! Lydia knew we would enjoy lunch at one of the local breweries - Founders. There was 8 of us and it was packed so it took awhile to get a table, but we managed to snag a kids table and an adult table. It was so nice to be able to sit and catch up with Lydia. We calculated our last visit to about 5 or 6 years earlier when she'd come to Florida.
After a delicious lunch and even more delicious beer, we got on the road to Kalamazoo. We had to stop for ice cream on the way though of course. This might possibly be, in my opinion, the best ice cream on our trip so far. If you're ever in or near Plainwell, Michigan, stop for some ice cream at Plainwell Ice Cream. You won't regret it.
Once we made it to Lydia's house, we hauled our things inside and talked for a little bit with her and her husband Allen. The kids disappeared into the basement occasionally reappearing as a mermaid or ninja. It's so great to have imaginative kids around for my kids to play with! 38 days playing with each other and mom can get a little tiresome I'm sure!
Lydia and Allen had arranged for a babysitter for our 5 kids for a few hours so we could do a mini-pub crawl of sorts in Kalamazoo. There are upwards of 15 breweries in the area and we were hoping to hit a few while we were in town. Our first stop was Acadia for a quick bit and couple beers The pub was very open with a steel industrial feel and the beer flight was tasty.
Our next stop was a place Dave had been looking forward to since he decided to join us on the trip - Bell's Brewery. We spent the rest of the night here trying all kinds of flavors and reminiscing our days together in Pensacola. I was so fortunate to work with Lydia for a bunch of years but more so because she tolerated me as a friend! We were part of a group of young technology kids that had a bunch of fun together!
Once 10pm rolled around too quickly, we went back to the house to put the kids to bed. We stayed up with the adults for a little while continuing our chats with a few more beers before we couldn't keep our eyes open any more.
