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!