By Todd Albery

Man, Detroit can’t catch a break.  Every year Detroit plans its big Winter Blast, and every year it’s either bitter cold or unseasonably warm!  This year was no exception.  Out of the blue, last weekend we go from 30+ straight-days of beautiful cool, snowy, Michigan Winter to… WARM.  Ice sculptures melting, buckets of snow being thrown on the sledding hill, warming stations vacant, and an inch of water on the Campus Martius ice skating rink (which my son actually thought was the greatest slip-n-slide ever!).

Despite the last-minute climate change, my family had an absolute BLAST down in Detroit this weekend!  Crowds were great, people were friendly and the event was well organized.  Rides were operating, lines were moving and my two kids couldn’t get enough of the fun.  My son and I raced down a crazy-fast 50-foot sledding hill (he’s still bragging about beating me).  My daughter took a dream- pony-ride through the snow.  We ice-skated to live DJ music.  We posed with Santa’s reindeer, Dancer, who was kind enough to fly over for the event.  We watched a Reggae Band (while the kids hoola-hooped) inside the Compuware building.  Then we finished the day off with some roasted marshmallows & s’mores, compliments  of Quicken Loans (please disregard the pink backpack  – it’s a Dad thing)

Detroit did another fantastic job this year of creating a fun family experience in spite of the Michigan weather.  It was a great day to celebrate a Winter in Detroit… It was also a great day to sport a Quizzle t-shirt and celebrate the one-year birthday of a new project called Quizzle!

Thanks to Detroit and Quicken Loans for providing my family with the BLAST of fun memories in winter ’09!

By Wendy Kemp

We are all excited by the wonderfully warm weather we are having right now, but just last week we had temperatures that were well below zero. Can you imagine living outdoors in the bitter cold and not having a warm home to go to?

As I prepared to partner with the Southeastern Michigan Red Cross for their Blanket Days event, I thought about the importance of a blanket. My favorite way to relax at home in the winter is with my favorite blanket reading on the couch or watching TV. Think about all times we use a blanket and how things would be different if we didn’t have one…we wrap our new born babies in blankets, we bring our puppy home in a blanket, or pets have their favorite blanket and I have even on occasion seen teenagers drag a blanket around. Who can forget the lovable Peanut’s character, Linus, who taught all of us that a blanket is more than just a blanket.

During January and February of this year we have had some bone chilling weather, which made our support of Red Cross’ Blanket Day’s program seem even more vital to the well being of the community.

Last month we transformed the Quicken Loans lobby into display area for the Red Cross Blanket Days program, 96.3 the River radio station was on hand to play music, the Red Cross Hummer and Emergency Response Vehicle were out front and Fox 2 broadcast in the morning that we would be collecting blankets at the Quicken Loans office to help shelters though out southeastern Michigan. By the end of the day Quicken Loans and Fathead team members, along with some wonderful people from the community, had donated more than $1,500 and collected almost 200 blankets to support the Red Cross’ disaster relief program and area shelters. Not too bad for a day that did not reach over 17 degrees.