Summer, so far...

It's been crazy busy. June started off with me flying out to NJ for the last days of the Show House. No photography was allowed, so all I have is the link here.

Two church friends had their babies. Both families added a baby girl. Both girls are adorable. A very close friend moved to Illinois, our bff Heather. She moved to become a full-time youth director at a church. She's going to be awesome and while I'm very sad that she moved, I'm so excited for her and this new opportunity to serve God and youth. She is coming back tomorrow for our Jr. High Workcamp trip. I'll get that posted when we return.

Then I had my 1/2 birthday. I love D.Q. ice cream cakes, and the D.Q. is closed here in the winter so I never get one on my birthday. My half birthday was a perfect way to celebrate!

At some point, Bill and I spent an afternoon at Meijer Gardens.

The strawberries took forever to come in due to the cooler weather. But it was definitely worth the wait. I didn't get out to a U-pick place, I picked them up at the Farmer's market. Yum!

Then, Jenny had her birthday party in St. Joseph. Several couples got together for a wine tour.


Here are the grapes on the vine. Not quite ripe yet...

We visited the Round Barn Brewery and Winery. The Cocoa beer was the best. Of course they were sold out of it in bottles. They still had kegs!!


The Vineyard at Karmen Vista

We visited five wineries and two chocolate stores.

Then Mom and Skylar came to visit. We went to Meijer Gardens (that Membership sure does come in handy!) and we were going to go to the beach, since it had been in the 90's the week before, but of course it was chilly and cloudy the week they were here.

The Children's Garden is celebrating its 5th Birthday this summer.


We took the Boardwalk path and saw all kinds of animals. Let's see if I can remember everything we saw; a couple turtles, a heron (or was it a crane?), a couple frogs/toads... we saw another animal... It wasn't a beaver, but it was some kind of animal like that. Not a muskrat... I'll have to find out. I forgot!

We also took a trip to the Farmer's Market. We picked up more strawberries, fresh green beans and some cherries. Then we stopped at Wealthy Street Bakery. Oh man! We each picked out something and then got cinnamon rolls for the next day. Everything was SO good. And since there were four cinnamon rolls, I was lucky enough to enjoy another one the day after they left.
Here is Skylar eating the green beans, they are really fresh!

That brings me to the Jr. High Adventure Camp at Lake Michigan. That deserves its own post...