(Note: I found this post half-finished on my work computer today. Since the outing that Eli and I took on his 5th birthday last year is definitely work remembering and sharing, I took the time at lunch today to finish this up this post and publish it!)
Yesterday, Wednesday May 26, was Eli’s 5th birthday. I took the day off work to spend the day with just Eli and I. Aunt Lori was kind enough to watch Matea for the day; Missy was busy most of the day with her last day of BSF for the spring.
Eli and I got in a lot of fun in our day together! We dropped off Matea at Aunt Lori’s house at 9:30, and then we were off. Here’s what we did:
Byron Township Library – We stopped at the library just as it opened at 9:30. My original thought was to borrow a movie for Eli to watch in the car since we’d be doing a fair amount of driving around. The find of the day though was a book that Eli himself found on the shelf: The Guinness World Records “Gamers Edition” for 2008! I wasn’t too sure about it at first, since I thought it might be kind of dry, and Eli might like better a book focused on Mario or another particular character or game for familiar to him. The Guinness book turned out to be great, though: Full of lots of pictures of all different kinds of games to look at. Eli loved it.
Exploring at the park – Our next stop was the park behind the library. We spent a good half an hour just walking around, exploring the fitness trail, looking at the little lake behind the library, and running around the baseball fields.
Reading at Kent Trails – We still had some time left before lunch, and Eli wanted to read his new book on video games, so we ended up making a short drive to the Kent Trails trailhead at 84th St., and just sat on the bench there and read together for a while. There was a big construction vehicle parked a short way down the trail itself as well doing some kind of work on some pipes running next to the steam by the trail, so we got to watch the workers at work for a little while as well.
Lunch Buffet at Pizza Hut – Next we drove to the Pizza Hut in Holland for lunch, and had a great lunch at the lunch buffet. Plenty of pizza, breadsticks, desert pizza, and pop! We even got a bargain, since they only charged Eli for the 3-year-old rate for the buffet, which was a lot cheaper than the adult rate; I think it was $8 for the adult lunch.
Putt-Putt Golf, Mini-Bowling, and Games at Lost City– 
After lunch, it was time for the main highlight of the day. We drove to Lost City in Holland, which is an indoor “fun center”-type place with putt-putt golf, mini-bowling, laser tag, and games to play for tickets to turn in for prizes. Since it was mid-day on a week day while school was still in session, there were no other kids around, and we had the place almost to ourselves. (I had originally looked into the possibility of taking Eli to Craig’s Cruisers, but it didn’t open until mid-afternoon, probably for the same reason.)
We played putt-putt golf first. The course turned out to be just a little 9-hole course, but that was actually probably about the right length for a 5-year-old. Eli did very well, getting lots of scores of “2” and “3,” and even a hole-in-one on one of the holes! And on the final hole, I managed to hit the “win a free game if you make this shot” shot, and the attendant let both Eli and I play another round for free. Fun!
We tried mini-bowling next. I had never heard of this before, but it turned out to be just about what it sounds like; bowling with a real ball, a real lane, and real pins, but at about 50% scale of the standard game. The game turned out to not be perfect – our ball got stuck a couple of times, and it turned out to be pretty tricky to roll the ball straight enough to get a lot of pins knocked down – but we played a couple of games and had a lot of fun anyway.
Finally, we played some of the games that they had; the standard kind of games that cost a quarter each to play, and spit out some number of tickets. Eli and I had a good time trying out Skee-ball and the other games, and Eli had fun at the end figuring out which prizes he could get for the number of tickets that he had won. Again, it was cool that we had the place to ourselves, and Eli could take plenty of time and space to take his time and look at all of the different prizes and figure out what he wanted.
Running on the Sand Dune at Tunnel Park -- When we left Lost City, it was only mid-afternoon, and since we were already in Holland, I decided to drive out to Tunnel Park. I actually didn’t know exactly where the park was, and I didn’t have any kind of GPS or smartphone to get directions, but I figured I’d just drive west and figure it out from there – and fortunately, I was able to find it! Meanwhile, Eli, tired from the good food and fun, fell asleep in the back seat of the car on the way there.
We got to the park, and since it was before Memorial Day, there was no attendant, and we were able to get in for free – another nice bonus! Since school was still in session, the park was fairly empty, as Lost City had been. We played on the playground, and ran up and down the huge sand dune. We also spent some time at the park area at the top of the dune, walking around the wooden boardwalk structure and looking out at Lake Michigan. I snapped a picture of us using my cell ph0ne camera – it’s hard to tell, but this is us at the top of the dune, with Lake Michigan below us in the background:
Ice Cream at McDonald’s – Finally, we finished our day by driving back to Byron Center, going into the McDonald’s, and enjoying $1 ice creams.
What a great day! Probably the best single vacation day off work I’ve ever spent. I’m looking forward to another outing with Eli on his 6th birthday this year – and on starting birthday outings with Matea once she is old enough!
