Michigan ...In a Nutshell

So blogging kind of gets pushed out of priorities when you are doing so much and having so much fun....and honestly, rather than racking my brain to remember what we did everyday, I'm just going to post some highlights from the trip.
We have celebrated many things: birthdays, graduations, acceptance to intern programs etc. Mrs. Joy had a birthday so we treated her to presents, cake, and balloons.

To celebrate the occasions, we had dinner at a place called Boatwerks. The food was delicious (company great obviously) and macaroni and cheese to die for. We had a bowl of mac and cheese to split between the table with bacon and grilled chicken (def. not healthy but tasty , some of the best ive had actually)

Boatwerks also served Mrs. Joy a complimentary dessert....for which Walt threatened to devour....

While here through family I made a new friend, precious little Emily, she attached to me the first day and didn't let go till the day she left. I miss her already.

While here, she lost a tooth, and got 24 dollars!!! (pitched in from everyone of course) mostly because she spent forever trying to get that tooth out.

Emily, Eric, and I spent some time together Wednesday afternoon while the adults went shopping. We had a pajama party (compliments of Emily's imagination) and took pictures, played music, danced, and colored....I think Emily liked my drawings for her since I got replicas of them from her :)

Okay, now onto the short food section (since I forgot to snap alot of pictures) Michigan has several delicious dishes (especially for breakfast) which I can't believe we haven't thought of in the south..
First on the list, Hashbrown Omelet....this is an omelet that is inside a bed of hashbrowns...healthy? definitely not...delicious...YES!

Also, The Shoes giant cinnamon roll. DELICIOUS....for the record this was not my breakfast..
well bummer, that photo won't load...sometime later I suppose..
The other delicious treat here is slurpee....I totally wish we had these in Memphis.

Puzzles were many ...especially since Eric and I bought Disney puzzles at Barnes and Noble for a steal..

And so were games..

and of course sunsets..

PEACE

Michigan Trip 2011 Day 3

 Yes days 1 &2 made us this sleepy on our way to church

Yesterday was Day 3, i would have waited until this evening and just posted both yesterday and today together but it's been so crazy laid back here that i decided to do it today.

Yesterday started out going to church. Outdoor church to be exact. The weather was absolutely wonderful! The sun was behind the clouds so there was not blazing heat and there was a nice breeze making for a beautiful atmosphere to worship the Lord. We had a nice time of worship, the church had a guest band, BBOP (Big Band of Praise) who were a jazz group who played beautiful music and brought much honor and glory to the Lord with their playing.

After church, we came back to the house and had sandwiches (yes we are wild children) and some of us took naps (its a sunday tradition)

 Eric is somewhere under all that stuff.

after this we got ready to go back on the lake, this time we took the boat out on Lake Michigan (it was a bit calmer today) anchored and swam. it was wonderful to just chill in the water while random waves and wakes from other boats just floated you here and there. :)

After swimming we came back to eat dinner (london broil, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, fresh salad, fresh fruit....can we say YYUUMM!!!) Walt's cousin Mike is an EXCELLENT griller and has been treating us to some delicious meals. After eating we decided that we were giong to go out on the boat and watch the sunset.

The sun was behind the clouds as it set so unfortunately no sunset for us so we enjoyed jumping waves and chasing each other in the boat....Walt went so fast that Eric lost his hat and dove straight in for it (scaring his mother quite beyond her liking i must say) I did catch some pretty pictures of clouds and Walts boat hair...

After the lake we went to the general store to get famous Hudsonville icecream... I try a new flavor everytime. Last night was chocolate monster....i am not a chocolate ice cream person but this was GOOD!! chocolate icecream with fudge pieces and peanut butter ribbon yum!!!!

I also found this sign in the general store which i found quite humorous....

After this we had a scrabble game ...which i forgot to snap a picture of.....whoo whoo 3rd place!!! lol
Well, that was Sunday...more on Monday later!!!!
Peace

Michigan Trip 2011 VACATION!!! Days 1&2

So it has been quite  a while since I have blogged I have been incredibly busy!  I will have a post about June later on but now I am focusing on the beginning of my Michigan Trip. I left Memphis yesterday with my wonderful boyfriend Eric and we headed up to Michigan to visit with his mom and other family. We will be here for 10 days. I can't be more excited I have been dying to get away from normalcy and just relax. Yesterday Eric and I loaded up to head to Nashville. We decided to fly out of Nashville because it was cheaper than flying out of Memphis by about 70 dollars.

 On the wasy to Nashville we saw some clouds that were very Toy Story "esque"

So once we packed up we headed to Nashville. (and yes I am sporting my Vera Bradley...I couldn't live without them) So anyway we head to Nashville, we got there with time to spare so we ate Five Guys down by good ole Vandy. After this we went to the airport with through security and I bought my Ear Planes (which are these weird little ear plugs of a type that are supposed to help relieve pain for those of us whose ears are not able to equalize due to pressure. We got to our gate and sat patiently and waited. While waiting we found out our little "puddle jumper" as Eric called it has some A/C that wasn't 100%. Alas, we still had our smiles on...although Eric's was starting to get tired of being in pictuers (what a trooper) :)

Anyway, we boarded our plane and had a nice short flight to Detroit,. Once at Detroit, we dashed to our gate A2 from gate C37 (which are basically on opposite corners on the airport) and we were dashing because we had a VERY SHORT layover time. While on our dash from terminal C to A we had to go through this AWESOME tunnel with walls that had many different lights and beautiful music, IT WAS AMAZING!!!!

Then we hopped on our 45 minute flight from Detroit to Grand Rapids on a nice, large, comfy, AIR CONDITIONED air bus. Twas wonderful. This flight was short and sweet. Once we arrived in Grand Rapids we were greeted by Eric's mom and Walt :) It was wonderful so glad to be with people after a long days traveling. My first experience of Michigan was a 7/11 slurpee ( which I must admit was much better than an ICEE) There were multiple flavors like Mountain Dew, Coke, Grape Fanta, and another flavor I can't remember, I was tired and just went plain and simple with a coke :) It was WONDERFUL!

After this we went to a little place that sells Hudsonville ice cream, some AMAZING ice cream here in Michigan, I didn't bring my phone so i wasn't able to snap a picture of this place. It was a cozy little place that was as busy as Jerry's Sno Cone and upon eating the ice cream I understood why. DELICIOUS! So delicious that I didn't feel bad about consuming the calories that I hadn't run off yesterday.......I need to take care of that by the way. After this we went to bed around 1:30 am after meeting with some friends and family. I had to be introduced and all the people up here are so friendly. I woke up this morning around 7:30 to eat what is known up here as the "tradition" which is eating breakfast at a restaurant as The Wooden Shoe. It's a restaurant with an antique store on the other end. THe food and company were both delicious. The antique shop had some Disney collections...which were expensive and gorgeous at the same time.

Once we ate, the men went wave jumping while the women went shopping. Mrs. Joy was looking for an inexpnsive table so we hit up some of the local thrift stores and stores of other sorts. While looking around we found this giant 3.5 ft Mickey Mouse (who looked sad due to the fact his ears were pointing down....which we later attributed to the fact that noone would buy him because he cost....ready for it....$150!!!!!

I scored 3 medical books/dictionaries/med guide to help me with my future for ....also get ready for it....$1.33 total!!! I was psyched to stay the least. I am a total medical book junkie!!!! We girls also went to the farmers market downtown and got some delicious corn and other fresh produce!!! Once we got back, I went wave jumping with some of the guys and then Eric and I went out on the sea doo....we fell off within minutes due to a "technicality" a.ka. I leaned the wrong way....oops...we had a good laugh about it in the end...i won't lie I quite enjoyed it. Afterwards, we rested for a little bit and then headed to a small cookout with some of Walt's family. The food was delicious, as has been true of every meal I have consumed here thus far. :) After dinner, we just sat around the house for about an hour and then three of us went to watch the sunset at the pier of the beach!!! Even though the sun was behind clouds as it set it was still absolutely GORGEOUS!!!!

So that was days 1 & 2 in a nutshell...hopefully from here on out I can get them up day by day so they won't be as long! Peace from Michigan!!!