The Kleiber Family Timeline

Category: Michigan

Events in Michigan

  • Marshall Blues Festival 2022

    This was our first trip to the Marshall Blues Festival since the pandemic. We started the visit by watching a magic show in the American Museum of Magic. Mom visited the many gift and antique shops on main street (which was blocked off for the festival). We did notice the crowd was not a large as the pre-pandemic crowds, but there was a chance of rain in the forecast and that might have turned some people off.

    James and Dad made a quick visit to Colon while Mom was shopping and picked up a book on spook shows from the magic shop. It was actually a proof that was going to the museum.

    We returned and met up with Mom at a small restaurant on main street where we enjoyed beverages, then we continued back to Jackson and ate at our favorite Mexican restaurant there. A very nice day for all. (more…)

  • Past Tense 2022

    This was the first time we went to Past Tense since the pandemic, and had a pretty good time. First thing we noticed in the door was 20% off all garden items so Mom took advantage of this to purchase some spinning items for the yard. Past Tense also has year round Christmas and Halloween decorations so we bought a little of both. Some skulls with peeling skins for Dad, and some Christmas ornaments marked 95% off for James. Mom bought some garden items and after it was over and we were on our way home we made our traditional ice cream stop. (more…)

  • Bronners Visit 2022

    Memorial Day weekend continued with a trip to Bronners in Frankenmuth. The first thing we noticed when we drove into Frankenmuth was that there was a dog show called “The Dog Bowl” and the city of Frankenmuth was packed with visitors to see this show. However Bronners was not crowded at all and we took advantage of it to enjoy a nice visit to the largest Christmas shop in the land. Perhaps the most exciting new thing we saw was that Dept 56 was putting out a new Munster and Addams Family ceramic houses. We already had the Hawthorne version of the Munsters but we really had nothing on the Addams family so we bought a small Addams family gazebo to go into our ceramic display of haunted houses. (more…)

  • Canterbury Village Dinosaurs

  • Canterbury Village 2022

    After dropping off the family at Great Lakes Crossing, Dad went about ten miles down the street to Canterbury Village to check out the shops and see if new Halloween or Christmas items were in. Usually Canterbury was quiet but not today, the entire village had dinosaurs in it. These were high tech animatronics and pretty cool. Dad did a quick walk around the village taking these pictures, then went into the store to check on the gifts. Dad then headed back to Great Lakes Crossing to pick up the family.

    This is one time for sure that Dad got the better part of the shopping deal. (more…)

  • Gaylord Tornado Cleanup 2022

    Its been about a week since a #3 tornado touched down in Gaylord and the community was very busy putting things back together.

    We had spent many nights in Gaylord and enjoy the town very much. Its pretty much a hunting town but there are plenty of stores on the city main street. When we saw videos of the storm we could not believe it as it was just North of the main street where we used to shop.

    We wish the Gaylord community all best during this difficult time. (more…)

  • Haunted House – Mackinaw Island 2022

    The long standing haunted house on Mackinaw Island was not open till 11pm for some reason, but we did finally make it there and went through the house. The haunted house is sort of a wax museum with some animatronics and is very traditional and fun.

    Dads facebook profile photo for years has been Dad and James at the top of the steps of the haunted house so we decided to take that picture again, about 12 years later.

    Our favorite at the haunted house was probably the coffin that opens and a corpse sits up and turns around and looks at you. Nice effect! (more…)

  • Mackinaw Island 2022

    The weather was still cloudy and about 55-65 degrees so it was a very comfortable trip to the island. Once again we took the ferry across, although we did not remember the $35 charge to park. This year we stayed on main street and shopped as we felt it was too “buggy” to go into the woods as there were tons of mayflies flying around.

    Stopped at Joann Fudge to get some maple fudge for Mom, plus lots of t shirts for the family at monster tee. We noticed the magic shop was gone, replace by what we think was a jewelry store.

    We noticed it was just starting to get busy as this was the Friday of Memorial day. We were happy coming up earlier so we missed most of the tourist who came up for the weekend.
    (more…)

  • Haunted House – Mackinaw City 2022

    After our traditional smelt basket dinner at Audi’s, we went shopping at the tourist traps in Mackinaw city. We saw that the haunted house there was open so we decided to give it a whirl. All three of us went into the house and we all had a great time. The haunted house had some great animatronics and even a talking statue (projection) that gave us an introduction to the house.

    Lots of scares in this haunted house and I believe this was the first time any of us had gone through this house (the one on Mackinaw Island is much older and we have done that one several times.

    For the record, our favorite scene was the last one with the crazy kid animatronic running around. (more…)

  • Macinaw City 2022

    Our first visit since before the pandemic was a successful one. It was the day before the Memorial day crowd would show up so we had the city pretty much to ourselves. Lots of shopping for goodies and t-shirts. Once again we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express there and they were still doing construction on something in the lobby (when we were there last time, there was also construction of some kind going on).

    The breakfast was great and everyone had a great time in the city. We did notice that all the kite shops seemed to have disappeared which is unfortunate. For dinner we had pizza and wings two days in a row. Thats why its a vacation. (more…)