One of the advantages of being in a relatively large metropolitan area is the sheer number of indoor places to go with Charlotte. In Athens we're pretty much limited to our steady rotation of the library, uptown (to get coffee for mama and a muffin ["mussin"] for Charlotte), or mama's office. Maybe the grocery store. Or the bakery. That's about it.

In our five days in Grand Rapids, we've managed to hit up two major museums: Frederik Meijer Gardens and the Children's Museum. Both were big hits.

At the Gardens, Charlotte was most impressed by the tiny little partridges running around the tropical room. A close second was the Holiday Express Train, which I found even more fascinating. It was awesome! A gorgeous, elevated cedar-clad track ran through several rooms in the Gardens. The display also featured miniature replicas of downtown Grand Rapids buildings.

Ostensibly we went to check out the international Christmas tree show. Charlotte liked the little shoes filled with nuts under the Brazil tree.

We posed for the obligatory blonde-haired, blue-eyed Dutch girl photos next to the Netherlands tree.

And we revisited (well, revisit for Jeff and I, first visit for Charlotte) the gorgeous Chihuly in the ballroom, laying down on the floor so as to best view it. I have no idea what's going on in Charlotte's diaper region. I swear it didn't look this bulgy when we were there.

But the Children's Museum was the big hit. Charlotte was so overwhelmed with the awesomeness that most of the time she just stood motionless, staring and taking it all in. Tuesday at the museum they offer toddler time crafts. This week's craft was building a play-doh snowman. Since Charlotte has a minor obsession with snowmen (thanks, in part, to the classic P.D. Eastman book Snow), we had a lot of fun decking out her own triple-tier doughman with buttons and a fabric scarf.

The bubbles were another big attraction, although she prefered to watch Dada make the big bubbles.

On tomorrow's agenda: get Charlotte out to the festive Santa-wonderland at the mall for a meet-and-greet with the big man himself. We'll see how that goes.