Michigan Trip, Part 2

Day 2 in Michigan (August 12) brought work and fun for our family! Our first priority was getting the A/C fixed in our van. The whole drive up, we had it blasting air to no avail. It would be luxuriously cool for a few minutes, and then start blowing hot air. Let’s just say the 22 hours spent in the van were long and sticky. J

We knew we wanted to see my Uncle Paul, Aunt Noelle, and their family that day as well. But we also needed to start grocery shopping for my party, and also buy some food to eat that week at the hotel. All of those things are difficult to do without a car (which we couldn’t even get to the shop.)

So our Michigan family came to the rescue. J We drove over to their house and dropped the boys off. Then Aunt Noelle brought her van to the auto shop so we could drop our van off. Then all the ladies went over to grocery shop at Meijers. Group shopping is so much fun. J

When we finished, we headed back over to the hotel. Uncle Paul had taken all the boys out to lunch and they were on their way over to the hotel so we could do some swimming.

We played several wild games of Marco Polo together. J

Late that afternoon, they had to leave to take G to his football practice. On the way, Uncle Paul dropped us off at the repair shop to pick up our van. Now that we had a car, the rest of us decided to have some spur-of-the-moment fun. We wanted to see “Despicable Me 2” and it was playing at the theater later that night.

We went down the road to Arby’s for some dinner, and then headed over to the theater.

Turns out that one of the local banks was giving away free tickets to all their card holders. So the theater was jam-packed! Several movies sold out, but thankfully we got in to see ours. It was pretty funny!

The next morning found us up early. We were going up to mid-Michigan for a Park Day with homeschooling friends (in the town where we used to live!) The hour-long drive seemed so short after spending all weekend in the car. J

It was so good to see lots of old friends and have the opportunity to catch up. I knew that at my graduation party later that week, I wouldn’t have a lot of one-on-one time to talk with people, so a smaller setting was nice. And a lot of the friends that came to park day weren’t able to be at the party, so it worked out great!

A game of volleyball going on.

After visiting for several hours and enjoying lunch in the park, we headed out. We stopped by a friend’s house to pick up some blueberries for my graduation party. We visited with them for awhile, and then headed back towards town. We stopped by our favorite coffee shop, and then headed to a friend’s house for dinner.

Our friends live on a lake, and we had planned to swim. But as you can tell from the pictures above, it was a little too cold for that. J I think the temperature was about 68 degrees. That’s like March for a Texan. J We enjoyed visiting instead.

We had dinner out on their deck. We ate a delicious meal of baked potatoes with chili and cheese, a tomato-pesto-and-cheese salad, fruit salad, and tossed salad. It was all so delicious!

For dessert, they had a special surprise for me! A chocolate torte with “Congratulations” candles on it! I felt quite special. J

Photo Credit: Roma.

Sadly, our evening had to come to an end, and we headed back to the hotel. But the next morning was going to bring more times with friends for us. . .

To be continued . . .