Ouch

Anne knows what I'm talking about... she has impressed me with her pain tolerance ;)

Yooper Family Weekend

I didn't take any pictures of this crazy family filled weekend just experienced. I was just not interested for some reason. If I had taken pics, I would have gotten some of playing on the Hobie-cat with Dad and Steve and Uncle Harold, drinking margaritas and reading Harry Potter with Anne and Jean, the sunburn I got cause I drank too many margaritas in the sun, the turkey chase Steve and I had during the family reunion, Hailey and Anne's uncomfortable looks whenever Ray came over to hang out, and of course a few of Harold and Jean's giant house on Lake Michigan.

Overall it was a fun weekend. I would do it again. But now I"m back in Ann Arbor and I'm tired so that's it!!

Canyon Falls

After leaving Tom and Marcie's, we had a stop at Canyon Falls to absorb some Yuan Qi (energy from nature or the source). It was great to get back there and still feel that it's a magical place that I could spend all day in one spot and never get bored.

The water was warm and perfect, although low. I would have totally swam around if I hadn't been worried about getting the Mini messy hours before giving it back to my mom =)


Unfortunately, all of my pictures were too dark, so I'm using Anne's pics (except for the first one).

There were a bunch of people playing in the water, squealing, and jumping off cliffs, but no one was at THE jumping spot. I had been hoping for a couple of those local boys who launch themselves off the top and do all kinds of flips.

BUT the only guy that caught our eye was mowing the grass around the parking lot... rerrowl.


We ended up spending 2 hours or something like that walking around taking pics.. I was surprised. Anne was amused by the occurance of men on the trail - it led to a discussion of the male/female ratio in Houghton and at Tech. Apparently she had the opposite problem at Macalester and would sympathesize with Dave and Jesse's opinion of Houghton even though she really liked it there.

Chummmba Pie

This morning (after Bethany was wonderful and brought us back to the Mini) we headed out to Tom and Marcie's to have some more cute little kid time and say good bye. I also wanted to get a couple of pics of the Melvig house - it's pretty sweet!

I got some quality chat time with Tom and cuddle time with Aili, whereas Anne cemented her relationship to Tyler with funny face pics and berry picking.


Ty's such a little cuddler!







Cute!!


















It was difficult to tear ourselves away, but we finally had to leave so we could fit in a trip to Canyon Falls before meeting up with my family in Escanaba!

Tomfoolery

Last night was our night to go out on the town. We met up with Jessica and Bethany at the Keweenaw Brewing Company for chit chat and some cheap awesome beer - $2 for awesome stuff that's brewed there!! I love Houghton.

Afterwards, Jessica headed out so the rest of us ran into the Library for martinis - key lime for Bethany, lemon drop for me, and james bond for Anne. Anne. So funny.. decided since she didn't like hers, the solution was to slam it. She has a way bigger pain tolerance than I have.

That decision then paved the way for the three of us to finish up at the Dog where I ended up answering Dave's call in the bathroom and going into my usual flowery appreciation of whomever I'm talking to when I've had too much to drink. That was so much fun I decided to pass Dave around so Bethany and Anne could say hi as well.

Bethany was an angel and gave Anne and I a ride back to the Q so we didn't have to walk then AND in the morning! We got home and proceeded to have drunk photo shoot. It was pretty funny finding all the pics this morning. These are a couple of the ones you can actually see and aren't of the toilet. I am not photogenic when I"m saucy, but lucky for everyone Anne is!! *Cute*

Jampot!

This morning we got up (slowly - I had breakfast with Jessica at Suomi - YUM!) and headed up to get a bunch of stuff at the Jampot. Along the way we stopped at Eagle River and took some pics of the bridge and the waterfall.


I tried to find the trail to Mount Lookout, but didn't have much luck. We kept on to the Jampot where we spent $120 (yikes) on jam, Abbey cake, truffles, and a muffin. LOTs of jam. We were ridiculous.




We also stopped at Jacobs Creek Falls and took some pics, then had lunch at the Michigan House.

BBQ at Kurt's!

Yesterday we ended the night at a BBQ at Kurt's. The food was great (especially the fruit salad!) and it was wonderful to see Ren and Paul again. We went to Ren's first and Anne got the tour of the old Baltic Hotel. I forgot how huge their place is!




Kurt lives just down the road from Ren and Paul and was excited to finally have the neighbors over.

We feasted with Domenico and Maria as well who brought some tasty burgers and sausage.

Ren brought over a pan of her wonderful Pannu Kaku (Finnish Pancake) and it was a relief to have a piece that didn't feel like it was going to break my teeth.

Mt. Brockway

After running back to the car to get away from all the biting bugs, we stopped off at the Jampot and got ourselves a treat (chocolate-mint truffle and seedless backberry jam) and headed up to Copper Harbor.


We stopped and took a photo-op on Mt. Brockway. It was crazy getting away from all the fog on the lake and finding that a bit inland it was a beautifully hot day.





We stopped at the berry patch and got ourselves a mixed wild berry sundae. It was perfect (other than the fact that it could have used some more berries in my opinion). After that, we sped back to the Q so we could shower and make it to Jessica and Kurt's BBQ!

7 Mile Point

After leaving Hungarian, we ate lunch at the Michigan House (mmm. caesar wrap) and headed out to 7 Mile.
I got to get Anne all fired up about all the rich people who buy up all the lake front property and then try and close it to the public. It was especially annoying when we pulled up to the gate locking us out of a publicly owned beach.


We found a sneaky parking spot and headed down to hunt for agates and get away from the deerflies that were swarming us.
It was really hot so I thought that we'd maybe want to jump in the water, but when we got there it was all foggy! Crazy!





We found a couple of agates and played around with all the beach rocks until I started to get worried about the car getting towed (not that a tow truck would get out there within 3 hours, but I didn't want to risk it) and we headed north!

Hungarian Falls

We woke up today and headed out to Hungarian Falls. It was to be our last group outing before Ackerly headed off back to the LP.. As usual, we had to try every street in Tamarack City before we remembered that the turn is 6th St. (i'm writing it here so I an reference heheheh..)



The Falls were almost completely dry! It was crazy - definitely showing us how long it's been since it's rained up here. Since there wasn't much flowing water - mostly stagnant - the bugs were pretty annoying.




The views were great still, although it was incredibly hazy and hot for 10am and much running around was instantly a sticky business.

Tom and Marcie Highlights

Unfortunately neither Anne nor I took any pictures today, but we had a ridiculous amount of fun anyway. Anne, AJ, and I had yummy Co-op lunch-breakfast then split ways so Ackerly could go hang with Luke and Anne and I headed over to my cousins Tom and Marcie's. They have the coolest house ever. We have to go back so I can bring over a present and I'm hoping to take some pics then.

I got lots of tiny kid and baby time over there YAY! and Anne has a new 3yearl old, 2 foot tall, as blond as you can get boyfriend. My little cousin Tyler loves her - "Nooo.. you have to play with me" while he's cuddling her hand *cute*! I am all smitten with little Aili Isabelle! She's Tyler's "chumba pie" (you have to sing it) and was the happiest little baby I've ever seen. All smiles
and squeals, especially for Mom and Dad.. sooo cute! AND! I got to do my favorite baby trick - turning on the furnace and putting them to sleep... they can't resist the furnace.

During the day we picked berries - Anne experienced her first thimbleberry - "it was good"
and we had little pails of raspberries. Tyler was always trying to figure out how to sneak some of everyone else's berries.

Also! I received a Marcie-treatment - even better than I remember - AND! I got to returnthe favor! That was the best!

White City

Today we went out to White City with Bethany and Jake. We met up with Marcie and Tom (with kiddies Tyler and Aili), LaNaeh and Davey, Joe and Gayle, and Maryanne and her husband.

Bethany, Anne, Ackerly, and many of the others actually got in the water by jumping off the boat, but the shock that was obvious by even the locals kept me out. I had finally resigned myself to it when the sun went away behind a blanket of clouds.. I found out later that I also narrowly averted getting thrown in for the same reason (shaking fist).

I got to meet my new little cousin Aili *cute*! ..she's quite the scowling concentrator but also fast with a smile as long as you're willing to bounce her and smile back.

We played some frisbee and I actually got myself into the water (except for the head). It was a wonderful day of mostly beautiful weather.

We finished up by going out to the Ambassador for tostada pizza and fishbowls.

Houghton!

I'm in Houghton!!

Anne, Ackerly, and I got here after an exhausting day of driving, driving, lavender festival, driving, dinner, driving, airport, driving, giggling, packing, giggling, sleeping, giggling, breakfast, driving, swimming, driving.

It was intense. A very long day after not being able to sleep because I was so excited.



We stopped just after the bridge to meet up with Ackerly and to poke our toes into Lake Michigan.

We had moments of extreme excitement followed by moments of exhaustion... 4 hours of sleep will do that, right?

We finally figured out that our music selestion needed refinement to account for the lack of sleep - lots of energy in the music, but not until we were already in L'Anse and only had 30 minutes left in the 9 hour drive.

We went out to dinner with Pete, Jessica, and Kurt (Jess's boyfriend) at the Library. It was great catching up and finally hearing my one and only explanation of what Pete does for work - all prompted by Anne talking about infrared light. We bought 2 growlers and headed back to the Q to check out the attic and shoot the shit. It was great!

Home Life

Things have been mostly uneventful over here in Michigan. I learned how to powerwash the deck, I re-stained it with my dad, we made some fresh pasta with the Calabrese meatballs (YUM!), and then this past weekend I went to Stratford, Ontario with my mom (Dad idn't want to this year) and 3 couples that are their friends.
We saw 2 plays The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare) and My One and Only (Gershwin). The first was hilarious! Sooo funny, I was very impressed. The second wasn't as funny and had lots of singing and tap dancing. I am not usually a fan of musicals and pretty much felt the same about this one, though the singing and dancing was great (as long as you like tap and opera-ish voices) and the story was pretty good.
We stayed in a B&B called the Old Rectory. It was great! The couple that owns it (Kim and Kevan) bought the house (built in 1902) and restored it to period (with modern toilets and showers and that kind). The room I was in with my mom had a claw foot iron tub instead of a shower - fun! They served gourmet amazingly delicious breakfasts that they made themselves.
Overall I was very impressed with the town. I was expecting lot more snobbishness and dislike of tourists which was actually non-existent. The people were very friendly and accommodating.
I took a few pics of some gardens Mom and I walked around... all the pics from Stratford and some of my parents are HERE!