Moving to Michigan in Summer 2008 (Detroit, Nashville: extended stay, hotel, buy)
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Each kid will need: Hat, Gloves/mittens (at least 2 pr.), heavy socks (several pr), long underwear, heavy coat, medium coat, light coat, (it is nice to have a back up for each for when they get all wet if you can), snow pants (if you are lucky enough to find/afford them), boots (2 or more), and it is nice to have lined blue jeans. They will also need several wool sweaters.
For winter gear buy it at salvation army or some other second hand place. A lot of what they sell is brand new and still has tags. Your kids will either lose gloves/mittens, hats and scarves or outgrow them in the first winter (they will not outgrow scarves). They will also outgrow their coats and snowpants. Their boots will probably be ruined in a season even if they do not outgrow them.
Paying $150 for a kids coat for one season seems ridiculous to me. We rarely paid over $5 for a coat and all of our kids have stylish and warm gear to wear. One other suggestion, buy used winter gear in a different City so your kids do not go visit a friend and have them say "Hey that is my old coat!" My sister is a bargain hunter and bought almost all of our winter clothing for us. She gives us a garbage bag full of mostly or entirely new clothing and says "That was $12."
In some Meyers sales, (and occaisionally at K-Mart) you can find off season clothing as cheap as used clothing. We recently bought a load of sale clothing that included several coats for $5.50 and a matching long sleeve polo shirt and jeans for an 8 year old for $3.00 - brand new.
Buy sleds off season too, but get rigid ones. They seem to slide better. Do not buy sleds that sit up high (some have handlebars like a bicycle), they tumble and kids get hurt. The best sledding hills for kids are at Kensington Metropark, but you will find decent ones all over the place.
In some Meyers sales, (and occaisionally at K-Mart) you can find off season clothing as cheap as used clothing. We recently bought a load of sale clothing that included several coats for $5.50 and a matching long sleeve polo shirt and jeans for an 8 year old for $3.00 - brand new.
Buy sleds off season too, but get rigid ones. They seem to slide better. Do not buy sleds that sit up high (some have handlebars like a bicycle), they tumble and kids get hurt. The best sledding hills for kids are at Kensington Metropark, but you will find decent ones all over the place.
It's "Meijer" (our poor friend from out of state will be looking for Meyers and never find it). :-)
Sleds - if you're living in Commerce you're not too far from Franklin Hill either. It's at Franklin Community Church (google it, I'm betting they have a home page) and it's a great sledding hill. Kensington is great too (as mentioned above).
Something you might also need to do once you're here (especially since you're coming in the summer) is take a long weekend to explore the nortwestern corner of the lower peninsula (centered at Traverse City, but headed both west into Leelanau County and north toward Petoskey and Harbor Springs). In my experience, people who hate Michigan or bemoan its flatness rarely get out of Metro Detroit to see other parts of the state. No, there are no mountains, but in my estimation the northwest corner of the lower peninsula is one of nature's true wonders. Take a day to see Sleeping Bear, take a cruise on Grand Traverse Bay, and walk around the shops in Charlevoix or Petoskey. Those are the places people from here who wax poetic about their home state are often describing even if (like me) they've lived their entire life in metro Detroit or the larger towns west of there.
i grew up in michigan and always traveled out of state with my family-i LOVE michigan, i only moved out of state when i graduated college because being a teacher is a hard position to be in to get a job in mi!!!...if they travel as far as harbor then they might as well take a little day trip to mackinac and or the UP to tahquamenon falls......and there are "mountains" in the UP-the entire state is not totally flat...hehehe....
oh, and us Up North people giggle even at metro detroiters when it comes to snow....i laugh even harder now that i live in Philly-i think winter is depressing here with basically no snow....
costs that someone mentioned are not that bad-i didn't know many people with underground sprinkler systems-maybe it is a detroit thing...but you have to think about freezing pipes-hence emptying them....
yeah i know this doesn't follow the thread topic perfectly..haha...i just love to be positive about michigan (minus the economy..)
Ok, it is official. There are absolutely no warm clothes where I live! I am taking notes on every post and thought I would take advantage of "the winter clearance" at my local stores and stock up. Nothing. I am slightly concerned that my kids are going to freeze. (or I will go broke shopping on the fly)
This is my question: We have a ski shop near by that sells a lot of ski attire. The man who owns the store is a little crazy, but the prices are incredible. (I will admit, I have creepy feeling when I shop there) I will not mention any names of course. Should I consider buying ski attire, is that the same as every day winter clothes in Michigan?
What is popular? Clothing wise?
Another question. Are skechers popular there? (shoes)
I'm not sure what Skechers are other than a brand. I sort of think of skechers in particular as the big sort of dress shoe with a big bottom.
People call "sneakers", "tennis shoes" here, no matter if they are tennis shoes or not. I tend to like to wear clogs in the fall, leather shoes in the winter, and sneaker type (converse brand) shoes in the summer, but a lot of people wear athletic shoes.
I'm not sure what ski attire is vs winter clothes. A lot of people wear sweaters or henleys/thermals. I don't care for sweatshirts though some will wear those. I also know a lot of people who just wear T-Shirts with jeans. Jeans are the most popular by far bottoms for winter. Adults and teens tend to wear more stylish coats, though tons of kids wear parka style colored coats, sorta puffy.
How cold does it get in the winter there? Here it is I'd say in the 20s but gets down certainly to zero. Weather does fluctuate a lot. We had a week in January with 50 degree weather, only to be hit with one of the worst winters on record.
I'm not sure what Skechers are other than a brand. I sort of think of skechers in particular as the big sort of dress shoe with a big bottom.
People call "sneakers", "tennis shoes" here, no matter if they are tennis shoes or not. I tend to like to wear clogs in the fall, leather shoes in the winter, and sneaker type (converse brand) shoes in the summer, but a lot of people wear athletic shoes.
I'm not sure what ski attire is vs winter clothes. A lot of people wear sweaters or henleys/thermals. I don't care for sweatshirts though some will wear those. I also know a lot of people who just wear T-Shirts with jeans. Jeans are the most popular by far bottoms for winter. Adults and teens tend to wear more stylish coats, though tons of kids wear parka style colored coats, sorta puffy.
How cold does it get in the winter there? Here it is I'd say in the 20s but gets down certainly to zero. Weather does fluctuate a lot. We had a week in January with 50 degree weather, only to be hit with one of the worst winters on record.
Where I currently live, I enjoy all the seasons and an occasional snow. Just enough to build a snow man, but he's gone the next day.
On the coldest day of winter, my son went to school wearing: Jeans, boots, turtleneck, old navy sweater and a coat. He took his gloves and wore them on the playground. He only brought gloves to school one day.
Chicago is the farthest North I have ever traveled. It was a one week business trip and I loved it. (cold dry air!)
I can't help but picture scenes from "A Christmas Story". Do you remember that movie, little Ralphie and the Red Ryder BB gun? The mom would bundle the kids up to go to school.
I have never seen real winter clothes for sale in a store, just ski clothes. I'm a rookie. I wouldn't know where to buy a wool sweater. (You could die of heat stroke in Texas if you wear a wool sweater on a cold day....the reason....because Texans freak out when it becomes cold. We heat our buildings like crazy.)
Oh, if you go to skechers.com, you will see the type of shoes I am referring to.
Actually, some of the cheapest winter clothes I ever found was in Dallas in winter. I think folks there buy it mainly for ski trips, so it might be a good place to get them. My kids have "snow pants" that they like. We had some snow bibs (they have the straps over the shoulder, and the front yolk) for them when they were younger. They're essentially ski pants, but you really don't need anything too fancy. A good pair of waterproof winter gloves is very important. Cold hands are NO FUN. As mentioned, a few pairs is good, since they get lost, but my kdis have been very good about keeping track of theirs.
You'll get it figured out. I'm sure everyone in town up here got a chuckle out of me when we moved here. I asked everyone what we needed, and where to get it, etc... I still haven't quite figured out what a "parka" is. One nice thingn about buying new is that the tags ususally tell you what temp it's rated for. I used that. Snow boots are somthing kids wear a LOT up here. Good socks are important. You may be able to get some good socks at the ski shop too. I'm able to find good long underwear at a lot of websites, such as REI clearance, or Sierra Trading Company in their clearance barn.
Definitely check out the ski shop. Essentially, the kids are wearing ski clothes over their regular clothes, when it is cold. My kids wear snow pants and parkas (parkas are coats that are a bit longer - they cover the hips) from Lands End. Check them out right now online, as they might be having a sale. They also have an overstock link, where you can get things pretty cheap. They will definitely need snow boots, too. When they are in school, you just send a pair of shoes in their backpack, and when they get to school, they all sit down and take the boots off and put the shoes on.
One thing I can tell you. I was under the impression that everyone wore snow pants and boots all winter long, everywhere they went, when we first moved here. Not so! You will need snow pants if you want to play in the yard with the kids (in snow, of course) or if you take them sledding or something. Otherwise, jeans or cords or whatever pants you like are fine for everyday running around. I did wear skirts with tights some, but on frigid days, it was just too cold!
The kids will wear snow pants over their pants to school when there is snow on the ground. Otherwise, they can just wear their regular pants or skirts or whatever. I did find that we all wore our snow boots a lot - even if we didn't have snow pants on. The salt and slushy nasty snow in parking lots would ruin good, regular shoes.
And yes, Sketchers are popular here. I think they are popular everywhere. My kids love them!
Thank you so much!!! I am so glad to be relocating in the summer, so I have extra time to prepare. It is funny, the more you know about something in advance the less you worry about it. I am not much for surprises, so it works for me.
Thank you so much!!! I am so glad to be relocating in the summer, so I have extra time to prepare. It is funny, the more you know about something in advance the less you worry about it. I am not much for surprises, so it works for me.
I think the summer is a good time to relocate here. You have time to get adjusted to the different part of the country, without the snow and cold to add to it! It is beautiful up here in the summer.
It helps too, that you have a really good attitude. I did not! However, we didn't have any advance notice. My husband's company offered him the promotion, and he was gone the next week to Michigan. That was Feb. 2007. I stayed in Dallas until school was out for the kids. I needed that much time to get used to the fact that we were moving so far away.
Another thing to tell you about is the expense of getting "home" when you want to go back and visit. It isn't cheap! For spring break, I took our 2 kids to Dallas, and it was $1200 to fly. Definitely sign up for Northwest and American miles, or if you will be flying into Houston, sign up for Continental. If you haven't already, that is. We also switched credit cards, and got an AA card. We use it like a debit card, for everything, then we pay it off each month. It has really helped us accrue miles. Also, to drive from here to Dallas takes a good 18-20 hours. We did it at Christmas.
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No luck shopping!
