Winter Bowl

Today was the East Lansing Winter Bowl. This is a family friendly event held downtown E.L. every December. There's everything from photos with Santa, feeding reindeer, and roasting marshmallows to a chili/soup cookoff, ice sculptures, and horse & carriage rides to name a few. It's a great way to bring families together and holiday cheer to downtown East Lansing. The Winter Bowl also brings the Holiday Arts and Crafts show to the MSU Union. This craft show is similar to the one in the spring that I attended with many of the same vendors, however everything is more holiday themed. This was our 4th year attending the Winter Bowl.

We started off the festivities with attending the Arts and Craft show. Well, I did at least. Greg wasn't interested so he took the kids to the bookstore while I walked around the craft show. There wasn't much I was looking for, but was hoping to find our annual family Christmas ornament. I did indeed find one, which I'll show you in my next post that will be all about our tree. I wasn't at the craft show too long and then we headed over to the Marriott where Santa and Mrs. Claus were. On the way into the hotel we passed by the ice sculptures that were being carved. This one was already done. How cool is that all you Spartan fans?


We got there a little early which ended up being a good thing because we were first in line for Santa. On the way into the hotel we spotted Santa and Em quickly jumped into Greg's arms saying, "no, no." While we waited for the photos to start with Santa, Mrs. Claus was in her chair already. Evan being the big brother he is, got Em to finally walk up and see Mrs. Claus as a little warm up to prepare for Santa. How sweet is this? He's telling Em it's o.k. to go up there.


She was up there for quite some time so I figured by the time Santa came back she would be just fine. While we're waiting for Santa and he wasn't to be found anywhere, I hear Mrs. Claus tell the "Elf" that she would call him on his cell however his cell was in her purse. Who would of thought almost 30 years ago when I was five that 30 years from then we'd be saying Santa has a cell phone. Boy have times changed! I wonder what we'll be saying 30 years from now when my kids take their kids to see Santa? When Santa finally arrived back at his chair, Em was having nothing to do with Santa this year. So it was just Evan visiting Santa this year. Here he is telling Santa what he wants for Christmas.


When he was done, I asked him what he asked Santa for. (Before we left the house he kept telling me he was asking for a race track and a robot. The track he mentioned one time before. Where the robot came from though I have no clue. That was new to me.) Evan said he asked Santa for a new set of drums and a race track.) Phew, I'm so glad he asked for drums because remember our Black Friday shopping... we bought the drums from Santa. I was getting a little worried there for a minute that he didn't want drums anymore.

The festivities continued after Santa. The Douglas J hair salon at the hotel has crafts set up for kids to paint ornaments. Ev and Em both painted their own. Here's Em painting her "Spartan Mitten."

And here's Evan painting his snowman!

We then headed over to the chili/soup tent which already had a fairly long line. It was a little chilly standing in line, but thankfully it moved quickly. We got into the tent and started our chili/soup tasting. There seemed to be less restaurants participating this year, but there was still a good amount of tasting to be done nonetheless! Here's all our samplings!


We both decided that the El Azteco chicken tortilla soup was our favorite for soup and the E.L. Fire Department was our favorite for chili. Here's the winning soup and chili!
The El Azteco chicken tortilla soup did win both judge's and people's choice award. The fire department came in 2nd for people's choice and 3rd for judges choice. Once again the Harrison Roadhouse white chicken chili won 1st place for both judge's and people's choice. That usually is our favorite, but it tasted a little different this year to us and the fire departments chili tasted like they tweaked it a little from last year so that's why it won our vote!

We finished off the Winter Bowl checking out the reindeer and then Greg took the kids on the horse and carriage ride. I was too cold and decided to go get the car while they waited in the long line. Here's Em and Ev with the reindeer.


Here's the horse and carriage ride they went on. Greg and Evan are towards the back and Em you can't see very well. I didn't snap the picture fast enough so all you can see is her hat. I also cut the horses off a little.

We had a fun time, but by the time we were done we were ready to go home and warm up! It was time to decorate the tree after we got home. I'll share all our tree stories in the next post. Stay tuned...