Mackinac Island

We went to Mackinac (pronounced "Mackinaw") Island. The Native Americans named this Island "Mackinac", which means "turtle island", because the island resembles a turtle. The French came in and wrote it out the way you see it on the title, but they pronounced it with a "aw" at the end. The English then came by and started spelling it with the 'aw' at the end but it didn't really catch. So, now you see it spelled both ways, but mostly with the 'ac' ending. Either way, the island is absolutely beautiful! There are no cars allowed, only bicycles and horses, which gives the island a totally different feel about it.
In the morning I awoke early and went outside to read. It was unbelievably serene and really cold. But, equipped with a jacked I read my book and enjoyed the sound of nothing which was only occasionally interrupted by the melodic clip clop of horses, and the quiet roar of distant boat engines. Even the seagulls knew to keep quiet at this time in the morning.

Out bike riding and we came upon this huge rock named Sugar Loaf which just jutted right out of the ground. The whole thing was a good 75 feet high and just a wonder to look at. Here I am near the top... of the 10 foot mark.

Riding a rock by the beach. We had an awesome bike ride around the island. The whole thing around is 8 miles.

It's tulip time, and the tulips definitely added an elite quality to the island. They were huge and smelled fantastic.

Here we are hitting the trails. The small island had some surprisingly steep hills on which we had a lot of fun riding down and not as much fun climbing them up. Tia wasn't done with the trails once this one was done and we ended up going on a different trail that was not on the map. Of course, we got on at the end of the trail and ended up walking our bikes up these incredibly steep slopes for most of the trail. We still laughed the whole way.

Wow. What a gorgeous day. We were really lucky.

Here's a turtle with a Tia on its back. It's pink flowers and purple designs normally attract Tias. Tias then attract photos which the turtles enjoy posing for. So it's a symbiotic relationship.

Look how clear the water is. It's fresh water, of course, because it's a lake. I believe the island is on Lake Huron. Not too far from here is Lake Michigan. If you need to remember the names of all the lakes, remember, HOMES (Huron Ontario Michigan Eerie Superior). If you need to remember which is which, always carry a map with you.

Here's the B&B we stayed at. It was GREAT! It's called the Bay View and if ever you find yourself in Mackinac, I would recommend this B&B. They serve the most incredible breakfast, Monday morning we got Homemade Quiche, served with homemade cinnamon bun roll, thing, with fruit. At three o'clock they have fresh baked cookies which are amazing. How amazing? I don't really care for Oatmeal Raisin cookies... These were UNBELIEVABLE! Then at 8 o'clock they serve dessert. Last night, strawberry shortcake. How good? Tia's words: "there's no chocolate in this thing and it's still absolutely amazing!". The environment is incredibly friendly and the service is top notch. Great place!

Dinner at Goodfellows was so good even the Mafia was there. The nerve of that guy, huh? But, what was I gonna say... I saw The Godfather... I know what's up.

Chicago the Sequel

We went to Chicago again, and it was awesome. The weather was absolutely beautiful for five minutes. So, here are all the Chicago... ans? ins? anders? well, whatever you call people from Chicago enjoying the weather..... for a full five minutes.

Here is Hot Doug's. We waited in line for a good hour and the hot dog's were worth every dollar and every minute we waited. The service was also incredibly friendly and oh! Did I mention the hot dog's? They were amazing! ... ... .... ... good hot dogs.

Here is Chicago's big bean. Isn't it awesome. Some artist made it. And now all the tourists go there and stare at it for basic the same thrill you can get at the local fair $1.50 Hall of Mirror Maze. But, it was actually pretty cool.
You remember "Married with Children"? that's the fountain! The fountain at the opening credits. That's it. It's ... big.

These are the wonderful people that hosted us and made us welcomed in their beautiful home (they stuck us in the "basement", which was equipped with a full bar with a kegerator, a liquor dispenser, electronic dartboard, two fully functional beer pong tables, a huge television, Nintendo Wii, and of course, what party room would be complete without it, Karaoke machine. No we didn't sing!..... yes we did sing. .... .... at the top of our lungs. We had a great time. Thanks Barbatelli's! We can't wait to see you again!

Tia's Birthday

On my birthday I was welcomed home from work by "Coolio" the birthday snowman. Coolio started off my birthday with a single red rose and a birthday note. I was later told that the red dot on his cheek was a pimple because he was so nervous waiting for me.

I walked inside to find my wonderful husband standing at the top of the stairs holding a dozen red roses. He had prepared chicken marsala with pasta and decorated the table with an Easter Lily. Then, knowing the Carvel icecream cake tradition, he brought out a Carvel icecream cake (with balloon candles) accompanied by my favorite dessert wine. That, of course, brought tears to my eyes as there are no Carvel icecream places nearby and I had pretty much accepted that Carvel wouldn't be apart of the celebration this year... not to mention it was a touch of home!

Later, we went out to play in the snow as it had snowed 6.5 inches early that morning. We made our first snow angels ever and had a snowball fight. When we came back in, I had to "find" my presents around the house as they were hidden. He didn't make it an easy treasure hunt. It took me a few hours, but I eventually found them and loved them. It was an awesome birthday.

I felt so loved, not only from my husband, but from all the calls, cards, and text messages I received from my family and friends. Thank you for making me feel special and for being apart of my life.

Frankenmuth and relatives

Mom and Kristy came up for the weekend and we got to go to Frankenmuth. This is a little German town about half hour from our house. It's really nice and we got to go to Zender's famous restaurant which is famous for their chicken dinners. They are fried and fantastic! They sell like 40,000 tons of chicken a year (or some ridiculous number like that). Here's some of the fun.




Oh, yeah, it's Easter time and there were 100,00 Easter eggs spread out all over town.

Back home on Sunday, it snowed and I got to play. This is Larry, my little snowman.

We then started hanging out and played Rumikube. We had a great time but neglected Larry and...

He jumped to his death.

Unfortunately, we were having some camera issues and couldn't get as many pictures as we wanted. We had a great time. Thanks, Mom, for coming up. We love you!

Mission Accomplished!

So, we finally got our skiing in! It was a beautiful day and it was pretty warm. The snow was melting as the day went on and by the end of the day, the ski runs were filled with slushy, sloppy, icy, watery snow. This made skiing a little bit tougher, but, we had an awesome time!

Sorry about the quality of this next one. If you look hard enough, you can see Bigfoot in the background. I'm the guy on the upper left side of the screen falling right off the bat.

So, it looks so slow on tv, but I felt like I was flying down that mountain!

Chicago

Hello Michigan!

So, here we are in Michigan. We’re here because I wanted to see more snow and go skiing. So, of course, the day after I leave Maryland it gets hit with about two inches of snow. That’s ok, if there’s two inches of snow in MD, there must be five in MI, right? I mean, it IS 5 degrees outside, and that’s what they get here, right? Snow? NO! There’s about 5 or 6 feet of dirty, filthy, icy snow sitting in piles in the parking lots. I wanted to make a snowman out of it just because that’s all the snow there is, but I would have made it the most disgruntled snowman ever. I mean like Frosty after getting fired and going through a divorce. I decided not to.

Snow Angels anyone?

The drive here was ok, but there’s no radio in my car. So, my time was filled with games such as, sing all the street signs, “What am I touching in the back seat now?” (I felt around in the back and tried to …guess what I was touching, how high can I sing, breath hold (how long), I also figured out by doing the math completely in my head that my tires rotated an approximate 902,880 times. Which actually sounds like a pretty conservative number, if I had to guess it would be up in the 5 or 6 million area.
We've now been here a week and we're actually having a great time! It's been raining and no skiing yet. We actually went to the ski resort, which is literally 10 minutes from us, to look at the ski resort and we looked so sad just staring through our rain soaked windshield at the muddy remains of what used to be plush snowy ski runs. Either way, we've heard of a lot of great things to do here and we can't wait to sink our teeth into them. We'll be going to Chicago this weekend so stay tuned.