Hey, I dare you to throw your sandwich at the bus driver.

Pictoral Report of Christopher's Field Trip to Michigan State Capitol and History Museum.

Left Smith School at 9:00am and rode to Lansing on a charter bus.

Christopher on bus.

Arrived at the Michigan State Capitol building at 10:30. The Michigan State Capitol is a National Historic Landmark and only one of 11 other state capitols on that list. It was completed in 1879 and is beautiful inside with extensive and ornate artwork. Some of the flooring is made out of glass. When you walk under or over it, you can see shadows of people on the otherside.

Glass floor from underneath.
Glass floor from above.

Beautiful carpet in the capitol.

Interesting artwork in the capitol.

Laying on the ground and looking up into the dome.
Flags flown and carried during the Civil War.
Gerald Ford was ravaged by wolves today...
The glass floor from above.
The government in Lansing might not be perfect but they know which team to root for!

I enjoyed our tour of the state capitol. The tour guide was funny and related well with our 4th graders and was an expert on everything Michigan State Capitol. I love the state capitol because it is where I first felt the flutterings of love for my husband. We went there for something fun to do in our pre-dating stage. We walked around and looked at everything and then we got to the governor's office. This was pre-911 so all the doors were open and he walked right in to the governor's office and said he was Chris Vos from Plymouth, MI and was the governor in. The governor was not in and I don't know what would have happened if he had been but I fell in love with that boldness of Chris'. I loved that he wasn't afraid to go in there and ask for the governor. He is the same today, often fighting my battles for me when I am too afraid. I love him for that. Anyway...on with the tour.

We then took the bus over to the Michigan Historical Museum.


Some of Michigan's first inhabitants. Very cool exhibit that shows the native inhabitants of our state and also the explorers from Europe who "discovered" Michigan.

Huge wall sculpture of Michigan.
Diorama that has grass in front and back is mural but looks real.
Very interesting Civil War exhibit. Over 90,000 men from the state of Michigan fought in the Civil War and 14,753 gave their lives for the cause. Michigan was an important stop on the Underground Railroad. The above picture is of actual flowers sent from State of Michigan displayed on President Lincoln's casket.

Christopher in front of the sawmill display. In addition to a very interesting lumber display, there was also a copper and iron mine display.

The final display that we saw was Michigan in the 1900s, highlighting the automobile industry and it's impact upon our state. There was a large picture of R.E.Olds, the founder of Olds Motor Works and for whom the brand "Oldsmobile," is named for. It reminded me that my uncle has an old REO car that belongs to my sister and I need to reread "The Peacegiver."
This advertisement for Grape-Nuts cereal says "Children Fatten like Little Round White Pigs when fed on cream and Grape-Nuts." Thought it was funny. Anyone would fatten like a pig eating cream.
These dishes were on display as items you could get from a Green Stamps Catalog. We had these dishes growing up and I wish I knew where they were. They were pretty neat.

It was a fun field trip and I'm really glad that I got to go. Michigan is a state full of interesting history and I'm proud to be a citizen.

Thankful Thursday 01/31/2008

1. Plymouth Ward Cookbooks

2. Impending Snowstorms

3. American Girl Magazine

4. Crossword Puzzles

5. Jane Austen

Weekly Top Five 01/28/2008

Top Five Favorite 80s TV Shows

1. Cheers

2. Family Ties

3. The Cosby Show

4. The Love Boat

5. Who's the Boss

He did WHAT in his cup?

The sight of the little black box every year makes me shudder a little. "Cub Scout Grand Prix Pinewood Derby Kit." Oh no, not again, I think, another Pinewood Derby. I don't love the Pinewood Derby for several reasons. First of all, no one in our house is engineeringly inclined. Designing a winning car is not a Vos strong point. Marketing the car, buying a winning car on eBay, writing a story about the car; all of these we could do very well. Designing the car, not so much. Second of all, does the scout in the house actually "REALLY" make the car? I wish I could say, yes he does; he does it all. But in reality, at our house, he helps. Mom and Dad do the car. Actually, the first year he was in scouts Mom did the nagging, Uncle Tony did the designing and Dad did the painting. Last year, Mom did the nagging and Dad did the rest. This year, Mom started out nagging but ended up doing some finishing and painting and Dad did the rest. Christopher helps sand, does some painting, chooses the theme and colors, helps put on the weights, etc... The first two years, we had losing cars. They were slower than slow. We didn't know much about weights and pins and sanding the burrs and dry graphite. This year we did some investigating. Chris watched a video on youTube about how to make a winning car. I sought the advice of a local hardware man and we got some very helpful input from a former home teacher. This year we took off a lot of the wood and made a very thin car and then at the advice of Bro. Dalebout, we put as much weight as we could near the rear axle. We got the pins ground and polished by Christopher's Grammy's jeweler. All of our hard work this year paid off because Christopher's car, #59 "The Boss" came in 3rd in his den. The attendance at the derby this year included all three wards that meet at our building, so 3rd was nothing to sneeze at. He was pretty excited and we were too. Chris and I were just praying that his car wouldn't be last. It was gratifying to see his happy face at the end of the night.

I was just going to type these words, "Thankfully we only have two more years of derbys," when I realized that I have 3 more sons to be scouts. So technically I guess at the minimum, we have 17 more derby cars to make. This doesn't even include any other sons we might have in the future. 17 more cars. The thought makes me shudder.

Me. I can definitely lose it. My mother...a nut. My grandfather...stories about him are legendary.

I come from a long line of major overreactors. My grandmother didn't like the woman my uncle was marrying so her reaction was to not attend the wedding. Her son's own wedding. Once, my dad didn't like the TV show my sister was watching so he cut the power cord to the television set. I promise that I am not kidding. He just cut it right in two. He might have considered grounding her from the television, maybe discussing why he felt the show was inappropriate. But not my dad. He ended up having to use electrical tape to splice the cord back together. Good as new.

I've got some doozies of my own. I was in a bad mood one day and was cleaning the boys room. This job always puts me in a horrible mood because I find all kinds of disgusting things in there. On top of their dresser was a 5 gallon fish tank with 4 or 5 goldfish that they won at a carnival. I looked at the dirty fish tank and had just had it. I hefted the fish tank outside and threw it away. Fish and all. A little bit of overreacting, I would say.

Christopher got a Darth Vader alarm clock for his birthday and it was the stupidest clock ever because there was no way to set the alarm nor turn the alarm off without taking out the batteries. The alarm clock would go off at all hours of the day and night. It drove me crazy! I warned him to take the batteries out. One day, we're driving in the car and the alarm clock goes off. It was in my little "glove box bin" or whatever that thing in the middle of the car that holds stuff is called. It was going off...beeep....beeep....beeep....beeep. I'd had enough. I opened the window and out when the alarm clock right into the intersection of Ann Arbor Road and Sheldon. Overreact much?

I was reminded of all this today because I had a similar overreaction urge this morning. When everyone started getting ready, I could smell a smelly smell that smelled smelly. I searched the house for the source. I smelled the boys. I checked the toilets for maybe an unflushed turd. I smelled the bottom of shoes and the bottom of the dog. I just couldn't find the smelly smell. Let me clarify that I am no stranger to smelly smells. My babies have the smelliest poopy diapers known to man. They make even me gag. Our dog had a terrible problem with her anal glands. If you know anything about the smell of a dog's anal glands, you know that I am the master of handling smelly smells. So I found myself stumped this morning as to the origin of the smell. I loaded the dishes into our FIXED dishwasher (!) and opened the cupboard under the sink for the dishwasher soap and wowwie! there was the smell. Under the sink, it was smelly and wet and covered with ground up food bits. Somehow the pipe that fits into the garbage disposal had come undone but no one noticed. It was disgusting. I pulled everything out and cleaned out the mess under there and was ready to fix the pipe when the boys screamed for breakfast. So I served them cereal and popped bread in the toaster to toast. I got back under the sink and was messing with the pipe, trying to figure out how to fix it when I started to smell a new smell. A burning toast smell. Smoke was billowing from the toaster and there were 4 burned lumps of bread in there. AAAAHHHH! I already hate our toaster because it is really cheap and doesn't do a very good job of toasting. I figured it was finally completely on the fritz and I was so frustrated I almost pulled the toaster off the counter and threw it in the trash. However, I stopped myself, regained my composure and fixed the pipe. Once the pipe was fixed, I looked at the toaster. Someone had switched the setting from the lightest to the darkest. The toaster wasn't broken and I'm glad I didn't overreact and throw it away.

It was such a crazy morning. I'm glad they aren't all like this.

Thankful Thursday 01/24/2008

1. Dishwasher repairman

2. Broken oven door repairman

3. "Carpoolers"

4. Sister Missionaries

5. Scrabulous

Catch Me If You Can!

I couldn't find Cameron for a few minutes today. I looked and looked for him. Then I heard some giggling from under a laundry basket. There he was looking soooo cute! I just had to share some pictures.