my architecture bucket list

These are the places I want to visit purely for architecture reasons:

Boston
Newport, Rhode Island
San Fransisco
Buffalo
Tulsa
New Orleans
Paris
Montreal
Wisconsin (Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin)
Miami
Washington D.C. (again)
Florence, Italy
Austria
London

and everywhere in between.

This is just the beginning of the list. You know, places I can think of off the top of my head. If I sat down with my Preservation magazines I would be able to list more specific places and many more cities.

have a wonderful 4th of July...

Because it's Independence Day.

Because Savannah is an old city and seems to be the epitome of a holiday such as this.



Because we hung a ceiling fan without incident.

Because it is a gorgeous day outside.

Because it is summer.

Because it is my brother-in-law's birthday (which I should now point out, only because I just realized it, both of my brothers-in-law have holiday birthdays! Shawn's is St. Patrick's Day and Jerry's is today, cool).

Because we watched fireworks in South Haven last night.

Because it's time to go take a ride in the Corvette.

Because today is a great day for a cook-out.

Because we are a free country.

Because men and women have fought for our freedom.

not the holiday fireworks

We decided we would watch the fireworks tonight. We are lame. We don't want to watch them tomorrow night because they won't start until 10:30p and we both have to get up the next morning. I think we're going to enjoy them tonight because we're going to go to South Haven to watch them. It's going to be Pure Michigan craziness, but what's the 4th of July without some crazy?

We had planned to go last night to the Kentwood fireworks, but ended up having too good of a time at the cook-out (thanks Chandra and Jason!) and Bill whined his way out of going. We would have been able to see them just fine had there not been trees in the way. We thought about cutting them down, but they were in the neighbors yard and that would have taken too much time (and I'm joking; I posted this link on my facebook page yesterday, you can call me a tree hugger or whatever, I don't care what you call me, I like earth and Mother Nature). So we didn't see any fireworks last night.

Whatever you do, whether it's a parade, fireworks, a cook-out or something else; enjoy your freedom. We can do what we want because of our Independence. Happy 4th of July!!!

Saturday Tardiess

It happened one morning on my way to take a walk.

I started out to meet Kerri and our neighbor Glenn was out with their dog, Syd. Glenn and I exchanged morning pleasantries. He was off to take a bike ride, before it got too hot, with Syd. I continued on only to see Sharon, three houses down, getting her morning paper. Sharon is married to Jerry who likes to use his leaf-blower (all of the time). She asked why Bill and I weren't racing to the corner (this is something we've started to do at the end of our walks and she saw us one day). I laughed and told her where I was headed. She told me she was cheering for me that day she saw us race, but Bill beat me. That happens every time. Unless I catch him unaware, which has been once.

I continued on, laughing to myself about the Sesame Street song, "The People in My Neighborhood". No, that song probably didn't come from Sesame Street, but that's where I remember it from.

the preacher's daughter

Lexie came into my life when we moved back to Grand Rapids. Our first Sunday in church was the Sunday Jennie (her mom) was given the "United Methodist" gifts. It was Jennie's first "official" Sunday. They too had just moved here. I met Lexie in January of 2007, when I volunteered with Heather and the Jr. High youth group. Lexie was outgoing, had a great laugh and an even better sense of humor (she still has all of those qualities, spoiler alert: she's not dead, she just moving. Hang on, I'll get there).

I continued to volunteer with Heather (read about her by clicking her name or here) and the Jr. High youth group and took my first U.P. trip with them in the summer of 2007. Photos from that trip are all on our Mac hard drive and thus are currently inaccessible.

However, I can access photos from fall of 2007, when I began volunteering full time with the Jr. High.

Heather held a youth group "HO-down" (because her initials are H.O. and we didn't let opportunities to use them pass). We were encouraged to wear our cowboy best. Bandanas were passed out and there is even a video of line dancing. The story was the Prodigal Son, and we broke it down into many parts. This was the week the son was forced to eat with the pigs. Hence the Ho-down. Or something. It was fun, as you can see.

Lexie came riding in on her horse...

Fun times!



Then in the summer or '08, we took what would be our last trip to the U.P. with Heather.

Here are some crazy photos (of Lexie) from that trip:

Lindsay and Lexie, I think they'd just had a romantic moment running down the beach. This was the shore of Lake Superior on our way back.

This is Lexie on our bike ride around Mackinac Island.

They move today to their new home in East Lansing. Jennie will be the Senior Pastor at University Church and Lexie will finish high school in a new school there (the new school mascot is the Trojan, pretty exciting for a double P.K. = preacher's kid).

Thanks Lexie, for the memories. I've laughed harder knowing you. And just because you move doesn't mean we love you any less, or that you can't keep in touch. It's not good-bye, it's see you soon.

And yes. You can come back and watch "Four Weddings and a Funeral".