Bimbos and Lights

It has only been winter here in Michigan for a few weeks and I’m already getting restless. That’s NOT good considering I have about four months of this crap ahead of me. On a positive note, it’s getting my wheels turning with ideas of fun new things to do as a family. I figured since the Santa/Melting Pot adventure was so successful I might as well keep the activities flowing.

In the eight years I have lived in Kalamazoo I had yet to make it to our beautifully decorated park downtown. I pretty much forget about it every year until that really busy week of the holidays and I am never near organized enough to be able to make it work during that time. It always just gets the “Well maybe next year.” Not this year though…we WERE going and I WAS prepared…well almost ;).

I came up with just the right tactic to get Marc down there too…Bimbos ;). Bimbos just might be his FAVORITE pizza joint. I kind of threw the park idea at him right as we were leaving. I gathered the kids hats and mittens and off we went. I guess everyone had the same idea as me because the downtown area was packed. We had to park in the Food Dance parking lot and make a run for it to Bimbos. We have never had to park that far before. It seemed Bimbos was the place to be, it was packed.

Thankfully, we were able to get a good spot near the park afterwards. It was beautiful AND freezing. I thought I was prepared but I should have taken the kids’ snow pants as well. It didn’t take long for them to be over the lights and frolicking in the snow. Snowball fights weren’t too far behind. They were all soaked within 30 minutes. Oh, and I brought cloth mittens…one of the dumber things I’ve done.

Aspen's shoes were NOT meant for snow...her tootsies were freezing :(

I HATE to be cold, but the atmosphere conquered all the bitterness. The whole park was filled with childhood laughter and holiday melodies. A church was passing out free hot chocolate...it was HOT and yummy. Smiles were everywhere. Marc wasn’t prepared for the cold so we weren’t able to stay as long as the kids would have liked :(. I told them we would ALL come prepared next time…snow pants and all :).