Ice Skating

Another activity to embrace the winter season - Ice skating at the Yost Arena. It was organized for the Grad students so the rentals were discounted. Could see that they will applying what they learnt in skiing into skating. The girls definitely enjoyed themselves and were clamouring for more ice skating outings till bed time.

A useful skating support for kids

Cross Country Skiing

The weather forecast was benign, light snow with a lowest of -10 degree C. Therefore, we decided to go try x country skiing at Huron Meadows Metropark. It was something that I had wanted to do try and am pretty sure the girls will like it too because they probably cant differentiate between downhill and cross country skiing.
Had a hearty lunch at Northside Grille before the ski outing to do some carbo loading. It was the first time for the two elder girls at the Grille, and third for the baby.

Lunch at Northside Grille. Look at their glees.

The waitress were very nice to create special Mickey Mouse

I brought the two girls to a easy x country trail called Coyote Run. It was really pleasant, especially when we entered the coniferous forest.

The girls after their first xc ski experience.

New Year's Day Trip to Henry Ford Museum

On this rather snowy New Year's Day, the family went to Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. We have heard rather good reviews about the quality of the exhibits and we have been wanting to visit for some time. So taking the opportunity of the holiday and that everyone will be at the Hockey game in Ann Arbor, we went to the museum where the crowd was visibly thin.
The main draw of the museum was the automative exhibition as many of Henry Ford's innovation were there, not surprisingly. However, there are also other interesting artifacts relevant to American history, e.g. Rosa Park's bus, the chair in which Abe Lincoln was assassinated, JFK's car.
The museum was not huge but with three kids in tow, we could only complete the automative and the flight section of the museum. We will definitely go there again to see the rest of the exhibits and the adjoining Greenfield Village, especially since we have bought the Family Annual Pass.

Presidential car on which JFK was assassinated.

Chair on which Abe Lincoln sat on that fateful night

The Rosa Park bus

Dearborn has a large Arab American community, so naturally we had Middle Eastern food for dinner. We found this place called Hamido's which served very good hummus, falafel, schwarmma and kebab at very good price. Worthy of a second visit.