Tulip Festival or Bust

I have been wanting to go to the Tulip Festival for years and kept missing it. Well, that was not going to happen this year!The kids and I drove over there (on Matt's birthday in fact, we were celebrating for him) with a friend, Tiffany and her baby, and had a blast!Bauer and Cadance had a fun time running around the park admiring the fountains (and the fish living in the pond) while Tiffany and I admired all the tulips!Then we walked back up a couple blocks to see the Dutch Dancers! There were several streets blocked off because they had so many dancers! I with I could remember the number now...Bauer had a blast watching them...oh wait, no. Cadance tried to imitate them and I spent most of my time watching her rather than the actual dances.It was really hot so we headed over to Lake Michigan for a little break. We pulled up just as another friend of ours pulled in with her family! Bauer had a great time playing with them!Cadance, on the other hand, not so much. It was at least 10 degrees cooler there and the wind was blowing like crazy. None of us needed to have our swim suits on at all!We didn't stay for too long, but it was worth it and awesome to sit on an almost completely empty beach!We hopped in the car and headed back to the festival to get some dinner before we went back home. By complete accident we came across an open area with rows and rows of tulips! We had been looking for something like this earlier in the day but didn't have much luck!"I am El Nino...Yo soy El Nino. For those of you who don't habla espanol, El Nino is Spanish for: The Nino." -Chris Farley (Random, I know. But I can't help it!)After the flowers we went off in search of a restaurant for dinner. We found a cute little place, ate some good food, calmed some crazy kids down, and walked out only to find the the day which started out with sun and humid 80 degree weather had gradually turned into a dark, rainy 54 degree evening! We ran back to the car (but not before we stopped to get an Elephant Ear for the trip home) and drove home in almost two hours of pouring rain! All in all, a pretty good day!