Voogt Farms and ArtPrize

I'm continuing to play catch-up. With all of our traveling lately, its been difficult to keep up to date on the blog. Hopefully I'll be caught up soon!

Back on September 25th, we took another trip west to Grand Rapids... our third trip of the month! I think that's a new record. :) It was so wonderful to see our family out there so much last month. We were able to see Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Van all three times we were out there and we got to see Aunt Mary and Rebecca twice and Uncle Justin once. It was great!!

On this trip, we first went to visit Voogt Farms in Marne, Michigan. This is the farm that is owned and operated by Justin's Uncle Gary and Aunt Shirley Voogt. They raise black angus beef cattle and meat goats for sale, as well as chickens. We have purchased some of their beef for the past two years, so it was really great to be able to see the farm where the cattle are raised and hear more about their practices.

It was quite a chilly, drizzly morning, but we all still had a lot of fun exploring the farm. We met up with Uncle Justin, Aunt Mary, Rebecca, Great Grandma, Great Grandpa, Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Danny. I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Carson and Rebecca had a lot of fun together, running around and exploring, seeing the bulls, chickens, goats, and tractors, and picking themselves their own apple to snack on before we left. It was a great way to spend an early fall morning!

After our visit to Voogt Farms, we stopped for lunch at a local diner with Great Grandma, Great Grandpa, Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Danny. The food was very good and it was great to spend a little more time visiting. Carson and Uncle Danny went into the little Veteran's Memorial park next to the diner to check out the big canon after lunch. I think they both thought it was pretty cool! :)

Then we took a drive around for a bit so Carson could get a quick nap in. We stopped at Wells Orchard to pick up some apples and honey, then we followed Grandpa out to see a nice piece of property in which he has always wanted to invest.

Then we headed into downtown Grand Rapids to check out ArtPrize. This was the second year for ArtPrize. We had wanted to go check it out last year, but never made it, so we were excited to see it this year. Its an open art competition with the world's largest prize for the winner. It was founded by Rick DeVos and offers $500,000 in prizes to the winning artists. We think Uncle Danny's interest may have been piqued and maybe we'll see some of his art featured next year!

We started at the Y and then walked downtown to the Grand Rapids Public Museum, Campau Building, and the BOB. We only got to see a very small percentage of the art displayed throughout the city, but we did see some pretty neat stuff.

 A cow made up of smaller plastic cows.

 This is made of all toothpicks!

It was another great trip west! We look forward to our next trip out to the Grand Rapids area!