Tulips for Mother’s Day

My choice for a Mother’s Day activity was to go to the Tuliptime Festival in nearby Holland, MI.  The festival started on Saturday, and goes though next Saturday . . . with parades, rides, a craft show, a quilt show, dutch dancing, dutch food and displays . . . and tulips!  There were multiple locations around town where the tulip gardens were on display.

 

My plan for the day was to walk through the craft show, watch some dutch dancing, and check out some tulips.  Centennial Park was one location where we could do all three of those.

We arrived in Holland around 12:30 and it was already crowded, but we found a parking spot at the Civic Center, just a few blocks from Centennial Park. 

In the center of the park is a fountain, completely covered by moss – it was pretty cool!    

The craft show was really nice, with most of your typical vendors, and quite a few focusing on MI themed products.  We picked up a bag of kettle corn to tide Bryce over while we walked around, so I could shop in peace.  I wasn’t really looking for anything, but we did find the lady who makes the RV signs.  Since our last one was custom made to reflect our X-Aire toyhauler, we’ve been wanting to replace it with a Class A motorhome version.  We showed her a picture so she could match the colors, and left her to personalize it for us.

 

Just then, they announced that there would be a Kinder Dutch Dancing demonstration around the fountain, so we went over to get a spot.  It was crowded, and this was the kids’ dancing group, so it was a little bit difficult to see, but they did a good job and I got a few pictures.

 

Look at those shoes!  They look so huge and heavy – I don’t know how the kids can move in them!

They did a good job, though, and repeated their performance several times so that different people in the crowd could move forward for a better view.

We watched for a few minutes, then gave up our spot and continued walking through the craft show.  One booth had a wine slush that was really yummy – I tried mango peach and pomegranate – both tasted great.

As we made our way around the outside of the show, we were just in time to watch some more dutch dancing – this time it was the adults.

 

They have a serious shortage of men in their group, so half of the women had to dress and dance as men!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They appeared to be having fun, though!

We watched for a few minutes and then moved a little further along the sidewalk.  We reached another opening in the crowd and stopped for another view.

It looked like it took quite a bit of effort to kick their feet around in those big, heavy shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time we finished watching and walked the rest of the way through the craft show, it was time to go pick up our new sign.

 

I think it turned out pretty good – the colors on the RV are pretty close, and we represented Nicolas and Bryce with a Michigan State camp chair, and a US Navy camp chair.  Even though they won’t be travelling with us anymore, they’re still with us in spirit!

 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed the sights and sounds of the Tulip Time Festival . . . and the tulips . . . they were beautiful!