Holland/Tulip Festival

So according to the internets, one of the Michigan "bucket list" things to do is see the Tulip Festival in Holland Michigan. We probably wouldn't have gone out of our way for it, but it happens to be where our favorite beach is, so we decided to make a day of it. And I can save you a trip by saying "eh".

I printed off a map and directory telling about all of the amazing places you can see the tulips. It had them ranked by number of bulbs planted. The big farms want to charge you $10 a person to go see them which is downright hilarious to me. They average about 200,000 bulbs, so I would imagine it is special, but we are too cheap to pay to see flowers. I can see fields all over Lansing that have at least 200,000 dandelions, so there. We instead went to a place that has 80,000 bulbs planted and is free. I was still a bit underwhelmed. You mainly walk around looking at little planter-sections of different varieties of tulips. Maybe a greater interest in horticulture is needed to make this fun. I was just a little bored and a little panicked that E would pick one. The fine is $50 per flower. Yikes. Luckily, she did very well at "NO TOUCHING!"
Hey look. A windmill and some tulips. The most photogenic part of the whole festival.

Some friends of ours went to the parade, vendors and whatnot, but unless they are throwing candy, I can't possibly be bribed into watching a parade at 8-9 months pregnant.

Here are E and C walking around the tulip planters. E is into waving a lot now which is always funny to me. She also likes to say "Oh HI!" or "Hello derr!" like she hasn't seen you in weeks.

Tulips, two year old, lamb.

She was enjoying running around on the grass. I was enjoying not chasing her. This is poor Clayton trying to get a shot of her in front of the tulips. I ask a lot of my family.

He corralled her back to where I was sitting in the shade. I tried to bribe her with a piece of gum to sit on my lap for a picture. I like that you can see the gum in her mouth. I don't like that I look so dorky with braids. On Eleanor? Adorable. On me? Hmmm, why'd that big gal do her hair like a five year old?

Thank you for hiding my double chin sweet girl.

It was super hot in downtown Holland, so we had high hopes for the rest of the day at the beach. We got there and it seemed awfully cold, but I got my suit on anyways. By the time I made the walk to the beach I was shivering. Clayton brought E over a few minutes later (they had been playing on the swings on the other side) and I was heartbroken to see Eleanor so excited to be at the beach. She is obsessed with all things Little Mermaid right now. P.S. She's waving again.

This is as close as we got to getting wet. The place was deserted. We bailed. You needed coats. We were going to meet some friends there but I called them to tell them it wasn't worth it. They went anyways as their boys had their hearts set on the beach. They said as they made the drive from Holland to the shore, the temperature gauge in their car dropped about a degree a mile. It was a twenty degree difference between the two. Bummer.

Back in the car Eleanor showed us that she is as cool as ever.

The whole trip felt a little like a waste. I had my heart set on a beach day before the baby comes. A dozen other little things went wrong all day too. We were scratching our heads as to why we were having such bad luck. We even stopped at this great fish-place in Grand Rapids on the way home to buy some fresh fish to grill once we got home. Sadly they had NOTHING worth buying there, just a bunch of stuff they had already cut up to fry. Disappointed we ended up buying trout from Meijers instead. It wasn't until the next day that we realized that it had been Friday the 13th. We aren't superstitious people, but maybe we will just sit the next one out.