What Makes Farmington Hills Special - By Abbi Leala

Some of what's special about Farmington Hills, which is northwest of Detroit and the second largest city in Oakland County, MI, is it's got a small-town feeling and many people we like live near us. It's also close to many neat places, such as Comerica Park and the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit, as well as Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Those are all 25-30 miles away.

Farmington Hills was founded in 1823 by a Quaker man from Farmington, New York named Arthur Power. It was first known as Quakertown, then Farmington. Farmington Hills was incorporated in 1973.

We've got a neat Farmer's and Artisan's Market that's in the small town of Farmington - a town that shares our history and many city services with us.

Because Farmington and Farmington Hills were farming communites, there are many old houses. 

Here's the Longacre House. It isn't very far away from where we live. 

There are some very nice parks in Farmington Hills. One of them that Mama likes is called Heritage Park. It's right near Longacre House. There are 211 acres of forests, wetlands, meadows and ponds. The Upper Rouge River cuts through some parts of the park. 

This photo is of the Stuart Little Pond in Heritage Park. There's supposedly some sort of mysterious creature named Stuie living in the pond.

What's billed as "America's first free-standing Holocaust Memorial Center" is just a few miles from us. The Holocaust Memorial Center started in a city near us called West Bloomfield. The Center moved to its current location several years ago (it could've been longer, but Mama can't remember). 

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum has all kinds of old coin-operated machines, animatronic dummies, mechanical games and other odd things. The owner once appeared on the American Pickers TV show. 

What we like most, though, is our house. What we like least is our v-e-t's office that's not far away. Here's the lake near our house that we like to stop at on our stroller rides. There's also a small pond to the left that's not in the photo.

This was fun to do. Thank you, Oui Oui for hosting this event!