summer's here!

Wait, it's only May 8th.

While the rest of the country has been experiencing above-average temperatures, here in the great lakes region it's been chilly. Ten to twenty degrees below average. Until today. It reached 84. Blessed every saint that ever walked the earth; finally. No one complained, but we definitely exclaimed, "it's hot!" Because it was. Our house is not prepared for this. I had to search high and low for our window fans. Thank goodness for window fans. Have I been thankful for that yet?

On a side note, we had dinner with some wonderful friends, Jess and Jake (and their girls, Yael and Avah, I've blogged about that cutie patootie here. It didn't take much arm twisting when venison steaks were mentioned (which were delicious btw). The menu also included pretzels (hey Jess, I need that recipe), an amazing couscous salad (which I know was super easy to throw together, but I'm not that creative), a bowl of juicy, fresh fruit (did I mention today felt like summer, perfect!), and apple crisp with homemade french vanilla ice cream. Would you like to guess which dish(es) I made? It shouldn't be too difficult if you were paying attention.

The apple crisp and vanilla ice cream. It hit the spot. Man oh man. It was so good.

I had given some thought to strawberry shortcake, but had apples that unfortunately aren't fresh enough for regular snacking. I figured baking them would be the best thing for them. And it was.

So maybe I'm thankful for apple crisp too. Served warm with vanilla ice cream.

big fan

This past weekend, Heather and I drove to Gaylord, Michigan to attend the Big Ticket Festival. We had a great time. We got to see Matthew West, David Crowder Band, Leeland, Barlow Girl, Fireflight and our favorite boys, Needtobreathe.


l-r Bo, Joe, Emily, Seth, Bear (Needtobreathe)

As you can see, we had our pictures taken with them. The best part was when I got my umbrella case signed by all of them and mentioned that we've seen them four times. (Bear had asked the audience who had seen them before and Heather and I screamed and there was one other person who also screamed, so Bear said, "that's what I thought, no ones knows us." I had to let them know at the signing that we did know who they are.) Bo then said, "I thought you looked familiar." *sigh* We've met them before as you can read about here. It's nice to be recognized. Especially because we consider them to be big stars...

Check them out if you aren't familiar with their stuff. Visit their website where you can listen to snippets from their newest album. Their Shine On video on YouTube is amazing. I'll let you know when we'll be seeing them again. Because we won't be letting too many days pass without a Needtobreathe concert. Not when we're their biggest fans!