Day 5 Part 2

Nip N Sip

I had a chance to go to an actual drive-in restaurant, not drive-thru, but a drive-in. This is a restaurant that you park your car and place your order from the car.


They are famous for the Hammy Sammy. This is what Kendrick ordered.


Someone brought food to us on a tray and hooked it to the car window.
The root beer and onion rings are the best! YUM!

Day 5 Part 1

Preuss Pets

Is a family owned store that has been in the greater Lansing area for over 30 years. They have a wide selection of marine and freshwater animals, a full line of small animals like gerbils, ferrets, guinea pigs, a large variety of reptiles. The 22,000 square foot store is jam packed pets and supplies.

There is a cool water fall outside of the store.


Inside there is a giant pond full of koi fish.


I like the saltwater tanks. I even found Nemo!


This is a monitor dragon.


Here is a rat.


The staff was friendly and helpful.

Day 4 Part 3

Our last stop of the day was the Horse Teaching and Training center. Rosalie wanted to show me some horses she likes to visit.








My favorite part was petting the horses. There are so big!

Day 4 Part 2

Later in the afternoon we went to Fun Tyme. It is a place that where people go to play miniature golf, race cars, use batting cages, and of course there is an arcade.



Kendrick and Rosalie were good sports and let me go first.




Kendrick is a good golfer. He made a hole in one on the last hole and won a free round of golf.




My favorite part was the racing. I won first place. Piston Cup here I come.

Day 4 Part 1

Dear Evan,

This morning was raining, but the weather cleared for a brilliant day. We had a bite to eat and we were off.

Our first stop was Clem's Collectibles in downtown Lansing. May 1st was "Free Comic Book Day". The had a lot of neat super hero stuff and games.


Rosalie and I did some coloring. It was fun!

Next went to the butterfly house at the 4-H Childrens Garden. There were many butterflies flying from plant to plant. I even saw a lizard.


I had fun chasing butterflies. Rosalie helped me cross the bridge.

Day 3

Dear Evan,

I had another fun day today! 

Kendrick read me the email you sent.  Today was much warmer so I didn't need a coat, but he and Rosalie are going to try to make one for me in case it gets cold again.

Today I went to a soccer game with Kendrick.  Here he is playing goalie.  Rosalie had a soccer game too but it was at the same time in a different part of town.

Boy, being a goalie is much harder than it looks!  A kid could really get flattened by the ball.

After soccer we were all hungry.  So we went to your favorite place to eat, McDonalds!

This McDonald's is pretty cool.  It has a 1950's rock and roll theme. We sat in the back end of a car to eat our dinner.

There is even an old gas pump here that is probably like the ones that used to be at your Great Grandpa Roth and Great Great Grandpa Roth's Mobile gas station.

See how the tables look like record albums?  This is what people used to use to listen to music instead of CD's, DVD's and iPods.

And the chairs are super sparkly!

The food was great!  I even had some broccoli soup. Yum!

Well, that's all for now.  Say "hi" to Emily for me.  I hope you are having as much fun at school as I am.

Love,

Stanley

Day 2

April 27, 2009

Dear Evan,

I think I have jet lag from the trip.  I was very tired.  My kind hosts let me rest today and now I feel much better.

I'll write again tomorrow!

Love,
Stanley

Day 1 of the adventure

April 26, 2010. 

Dear Evan,

I arrived in Lansing today.  Thank you for packing me so well.  I had a nice trip.  Kendrick is my new friend.  He helped me to get out of the envelope.  He was so excited to see me!

At Home

The first thing we did was start rocking out some tunes on the guitar at my new temporary residence.

Later Kendrick and his sister Rosalie and their dad Sam took us on the "Flat Stanley tour bus."

MSU 4-H Children's Garden

We first tried to visit the Butterfly house at Michigan State University, but sadly it was already closed for the day but we had fun in the MSU 4-H Children's Garden.

Do you see the bridge back there? It's supposed to look like the bridge and pond in some of Monet's paintings. 

He was a French painter who liked to do a lot of paintings of nature.  His paintings were called "impressionist" because he painted how things made him feel or appear. 

He, and the other impressionist painters, did not paint to make something look like a photograph where the picture looks exactly like the thing being painted.

Eeks!  Do you know how spiders keep from getting stuck in their own web?  I'm really glad this web is not sticky.

I rode a sheep!  I am glad that I am here and not with the Sheep in the Jeep.  This is a much smoother ride.

 Toot toot!  I'm an engineer!

Rock kid meet Paper kid.  Has anybody seen Scissor kid?

Hey, we did get to see a butterfly after all!  I guess Rosalie really likes butterflies.

Mmm...smell the tulips!

I'm king of the world!

Downtown Lansing - City Hall
Then our crew "motored on down" to downtown Lansing to meet Kendrick's and Rosalie's mom Melissa.  Lansing was called a motor city like Detroit since both places have made cars for a long long time.

Melissa told me that your great great Aunt Cia's (married to Great Grandpa Roth's brother Chuck) uncle sold some property in Lansing to R. E. Olds to start his car factory in Lansing.  Have you ever heard of an Oldsmobile car?  Guess who it is named after?

So here we are in front of City Hall where we met Melissa.  She was just leaving City Hall where she participated in the city council meeting.  I guess it was kind of a silly meeting.  The adults were acting funny there. 

The mayor's office is in the Lansing City Hall right behind us.

 Melissa tells me that your Great Great Grandpa Roth was mayor of your town.  Do you know where his office was? Can you find this building in your town? Once you find this building, can you figure out where Great Grandpa might have eaten his lunch?

Lansing City Hall  is right next to one of the five police buildings in the city.

Melissa tells me that the city is considering consolidating the five building into one to help save money. That was one of the things they talked about at the City Council meeting tonight.

There is also an informative sign in front of the City Hall building to help me learn about the city of Lansing.  Did you know Lansing was platted in 1847 as the state capital and at that time it was still quite the wilderness.  Do you know who was president at that time?

Gee, from what I read it looks like I could have been visiting a place called Pewanogowink, Swedenborg, or El Dorado instead of Lansing!

While we were at City Hall we met some of the family's favorite security guards. They know Sam very well since he visits City Hall for his job, and Melissa, Sam and Kendrick go there for various city meetings.

These guys are very nice and they also help to keep people safe.  They look through all our bags and stuff when we visit and make sure we don't have anything dangerous with us that could hurt anybody.

Rosalie tells me that she found out from the nice security guys that she can't bring her safety scissors to meetings here.  I guess they are considered weapons.  I would agree with that.  They can really do a lot of damage to a paper kid! 

While I was at City Hall I decided to give a speech.  There weren't too many people there to attend my press conference though. Too bad.  I was hoping someone would give me a key to the city.

Downtown Lansing - State Capitol

From there, we visited some historic sites, including the State Capitol. It sure is big and beautiful. Do you know who designed it?  The architect made capital building for three other states. Can you find the two that look like this one?

Downtown Lansing - Comerica Bank

We also visited the very old but beautiful and gold-trimmed majestic Comerica Bank (where Melissa temped for a summer).   Kendrick and Rosalie pretended to withdraw money from the ATM.  We all said "hi" to the security cameras.

Here are some of the art deco style details.

Moon over Lansing

I looked at the beautiful moon in the sky amidst the tall buildings downtown as it turned to night. Brr. It's a little bit chilly.  I should have packed a coat.

Then I went with everyone to the downtown Library to help return books.

After that we went home. I was pretty tired. But it was a good day!  More later.

Love,

Stanley