Lucky Fin Project Weekend

Lucky Fin Project is an organization that connects people with limb differences.  There's an annual gathering, and I decided it would be fun to go this year.  

Upon arriving at our hotel, we were greeted with a welcome sign, and lots of families in the lobby.  Someone was passing out LFP backpacks with some fun loot in them.  

Friday's activity was a bit open ended.  Katie ran off with the pack (there were a LOT of kids) and made new friends.  Hannah stayed glued to me.  

Saturday, however, Hannah was a wee bit more adventurous.  While I stood in a line (registration? merch? lunch? there were a lot of lines) I sent her over to take a look at some of the vendors who were repping prosthetic arms.  

She had lots of questions, and she talked to at least 3 different vendors about arms.  

It was fun to meet authors and others with a connection to the limb difference community.  I hope the overall experience gave the girls the sense that they're not alone.  

We even spotted a firefighter/paramedic missing his right hand.  Hannah chatted with him, too.  

And Katie?  Well, that's her, up in the bucket of the ladder truck.  

Since she was following me around, I made her pose with the sign.

One of the fun parts was meeting a couple of moms I'd only known online.  

Another fun part was the police K9 demonstration.

I wouldn't want the dogs attacking me.  

Another random Hannah shot.  

Katie went to the concert, and afterwards was chatting up a guy in the band.  

She enjoyed learning more about the electric guitar, 

and this week was sure to mention that there was one in the rummage sale, just in case I'd missed it.  

This picture.  My heart can't even explain.  These guys were all born in China.  There were several other Chinese adoptees present, too.  

Our kids are swapped, but someone spotted us taking pics and told us moms to get in the shot, too.  I so appreciate that!  

Once upon a time, I went to China on an advocacy trip and a nanny plopped this baby in my lap, and he fell asleep on me.  I was smitten, and came home and shared about him, rejoicing when he was matched.  

I had no idea that six and a half years later, I'd be able to see him running around, healthy & happy, with a family of his very own.  This was the biggest blessing to me.  

Henry Ford Museum

I took the girls on an adventure to Michigan in July.  

We left Matilda at the airport and took the red eye to Chicago.  

At first, everything was fun!  Airports are interesting!  This is a new experience!

Reality, dismal reality, set in during our rainy layover before our Chicago-->Detroit flight.    You know how everything is a learning experience?  Well, we learned that red eye flights are not so fun.  And tired is a thing, even when you're seeing cool stuff.  We did not get as much sleep as I had predicted on the plane, due to me forgetting to factor in the change of time zones.  3 of them.  Those missing 3 hours of sleep would have really helped.  

Still, we landed in Chicago, after our freezing cold flight, and took a shuttle to pick up Bessie, our rental car for the weekend.  

We turned Bessie in the direction of the Henry Ford Museum.  So, backstory:  I found an event that I wanted to take Hannah and Katie to.  In the planning stages, I looked on Expedia to see what else was nearby, and I found the Henry Ford Museum.  I decided that looked pretty amazing, and we should go see it.  Once I'd started booking things, I got library books for the girls about Michigan and told them about the trip.  After reading, Katie said, "Can we go to the Henry Ford Museum??"  Yes.  Yes, we can.  The only way it fit, though, was to do it prior to the event, so we needed to get to town early in the day.  Hence the red eye flight.  

All that to say... here we are!  They have several presidential vehicles in the collection, and this is the car President Kennedy was riding in when he was shot.  

It was a bit surreal to be so close to a piece of our history.  

After the presidential cars, there's a train area.  That monster on the left is a Canadian snowplow.  

Then comes lots of cars.  All sorts of cars, with an interesting display through the decades.  

And then comes airplanes.  I was a little surprised there were SO many airplanes inside this museum.  

This was the first plane to make it to the North Pole.

A replica of the Wright Brothers' glider.

Another angle

The section about early passenger service was particularly interesting, since we'd just flown.  My, how times have changed!  

In 1823, 200 exact copies of the Declaration of Independence were created.  Only about 30 still exist.  We had a "cultural literacy teaching moment" over John Hancock's signature.  

Have you ever wondered what George Washington's handwriting looked like?  It was pretty nice, actually.  

3 things in this museum we Big for me.  This is the second.  This is the chair in which President Lincoln was sitting when he was shot.  

And this is a mask of his face when he died.  

This is the third "Wow, I'm so glad we got to see this" item in the museum.  

The Rosa Parks bus.

I got a little choked up watching African American ladies taking pictures with the bus.  We've come a long way, but we still have far to go.  

 

There was also a section on women's suffrage, and a jail cell in the area talking about ladies being arrested for wanting equal rights.  

At this point, we were running out of time, so we moved pretty rapidly through the industrialization section, but there was weaving and sewing and shoe making and metalwork and more.  

The "exploded" Model T.  I feel like my boys would have enjoyed this.  

Stagecoach, which prompted conversation about the Pony Express.  

The building itself was lovely.  We stopped in the gift shop on our way out, and bought Katie a t-shirt.  (Don't worry about Hannah; there's another gift shop in our future!)