Stay-cation and The Henry Ford Museum

This past week we decided to try a stay-cation. When making our summer plans, Chris and I had originally thought about going to Mackinac Island. We love it there and we felt the boys would have fun running around, riding bikes, eating fudge, taking boat rides, etc. We wanted to take them to the Fort and have them see some historic sites. Then we remembered that there are frequent rifle demonstartions and if flushing public toilets sends Colin into a panic-attack, we weren't so keen on finding out how he would react to a gun. We also thought about the fact that two of our vacation days would be spent solely in the car. Then we considered sleeping arrangements and realized we wouldn't get any. That bascially sealed the deal for us so we promised each other that if we stayed home, we would stay off the computers, ignore our phones, and only watch TV if we were going to watch a movie together. Chris officially requested the time off from work and besides having to handle pay-roll for Metro Coatings, he also told those guys he was off for the week. We then put together a list of ideas of things to do including both indoor and outdoor activities so we had options depending on weather. The night before our stay-cation started, we were deciding what we wanted to do on Day 1. Instead of consulting our previously made list, I came up with The Henry Ford Museum. Both the boys love cars, trains, planes and all kinds of machinery. I thought Colin would get a kick out of the diner and if the Museum was a bust, we could always let them run around Greenfield Village. Tuesday morning we arrived just after they opened and despite my gung-ho attitude the evening before, I had more than a little trepidation about how my 3 and 1 year olds would do in a museum. Well, I didn't need to worry because they both *loved* it. In fact, if Eli didn't completely melt down from pure exhaustion in need of his nap, we could have probably spent an entire day just at the museum. It was perfect for us because there was hardly anybody there so we could let Eli run around in the big open space while Colin got to leisurely check out all the displays. The workers were very professional and didn't bat an eye when our little man would come howling past them with Chris or I hot on his heels. Colin loved just about everything except for the trains and the planes because they were "too loud". However, those were two of the areas he was most interested in seeing before we got there. Eli's favorite part may have been the green screen where you pretend to be in a music video. That kids loves to dance. Before we left, we told Colin he could get a plastic mold made of his favorite display. He chose the Weiner-mobile, which I guess shouldn't be that surprising since hotdogs are one of his favorite foods (unfortunately). Both kids actually took naps that afternoon and after they were up we went to the library to pick out new books for the rest of our stay-cation. In honor of the Weiner-mobile we grilled hotdogs and bratwurst that night for dinner and everybody got a good night sleep in our own beds. All in all, I would say that Day 1 of the Ring Family stay-cation was a success.