We had quite a successful day downtown for the Dexter-Ann Arbor Race and Taste of Ann Arbor. My father ran the 10k and my sister ran the half-marathon. We made it in time to see my father finish and also saw my sister finish. We then had lunch at Taste of Ann Arbor.
The two highlights of the day were the bounce house and Cherry Republic.
As we were walking to watch the finish of the race my daughter told me that there was a cool bounce house in the race finish area. I asked her if she wanted to go in it later and she told me no. No surprise there since she hated bounce houses. So we saw my dad finish the 10k and she stopped to get a drink. Then she asked me to go to the bounce house. I had her repeat herself because it was noisy and I had trouble believing she wanted to. I took her over to the bounce house and after taking her shoes off she carefully studied the warning label, and decided to go in. She LOVED it! I am thrilled as we can hopefully stop avoiding birthday parties at Jump City, Xtreme Bounce Zone, Pump It Up, etc. She had such a great time that she went in twice. Unfortunately the second round after the half-marathon completed, there were some kids playing rough so I had her get out before she got hurt and decided she hated them again. There was a DJ in the area and she was actually dancing as she bounced.
Does your child love bouncing? Check out today’s Groupon for Jump City!
After eating through several restaurants, we wandered into the new store Cherry Republic. I was initially disappointed that they were not represented at Taste of Ann Arbor to have samples. However, once we were in the store, I was thrilled to have gone in. They had tons of samples out. It was delicious. We ended up buying barbecue sauce, salsa, and sour cherry patches. I also loved their cherry barbecue meatballs.
As we went down Liberty Street, the library stand was setup distributing materials for Summer Reading (which will kick off on June 17). They also had bubbles, chalk, and squirt bottles to make a mural. The Exhibit Museum of Natural History had an edible fossil craft. They had crushed graham crackers and chocolate cookies to make different layers of rock and pretzels to act as fossils. They also had chocolate syrup as lava. My daughter loves dinosaurs and fossils so she was thrilled to make this craft (and eat it).
I loved all the food that we sampled. I found it quite a bargain. We bought $20 in tickets and fed the three of us. My favorite was probably the Black Pearl Fish Taco. We were disappointed that Melting Pot was not offering a dessert this year.
I can’t wait for Taste of Ann Arbor 2012
