happy fourth of july from the fifth of july

hope everybody had a lovely holiday!!!

this independence day was a big one because my sister got engaged!!  i'm sure this will not be the last you hear about sarah's upcoming wedding since it will be in ann arbor.  i'm insanely excited to start taste testing curry for the menu... mahkni now please?? steve and i are so excited for sarah and dave, and we are all too stoked to get this big crazy intercultural showdown on the road.  woohoo!  (and how gorgeous is that ring / cliff he proposed at?  well done dave!)

my wardrobe is lacking in the extreme patriotism / clean laundry department so steve dressed festively enough for the both of us and we went for another float down the river to celebrate our raging freedom.  you might recall that i am distantly related to alexander hamilton and one of the original pilgrims so i'm about as american as they come, but since we owe the brits a great deal, i shall honor yesterday with a list of things i have learned about americans from watching british television.

1.  americans are extremely comfortable with guns.

it is almost humorous to watch how gingerly, carefully, and fearfully characters in british television handle firearms (unless of course they are villains).  i say almost humorous, but then i remember that there are more than forty times the number of gun related deaths in america than there are in britain and it feels like the joke might be on us.

2.  americans find cigarette smoking rather taboo.

which is great for cancer avoidance... not so great for that whole freedom thing we're always talking about.

3.  americans don't like normal looking people.

it is essential to be generically hot to be on american television.  your next best bet is to be a unique looking older man (we still really like steve buscemi).

looking ahead and behind

happy start to the short week!

we are back from enjoying a very pleasant weekend up north on the beach of lake michigan.  despite driving through some very nasty rain on our way up, both of us have pink sun-covered noses today from playing outside all weekend.  about halfway through the morning a rogue skimboard floated up to where we were sunbathing and we gave it a try (and fell down a whole lot).  it was a good thing we found it though, because i don't know if i would have gotten in the cold water otherwise...

i have more photos for you on my real camera, but for now i'll give you a little preview of iphone photos.

the sky was doing some crazy things on our drive up.  it was flooding in ann arbor when we left home and we were worried the weekend was going to be rainy after our long drive up in the rain.  we lucked out and had beautiful weather on saturday.

part of going to the cottage is going to this super old fashioned greasy spoon breakfast joint in one of the nearby small towns.  they are cash only and haven't redecorated since opening in 1979.  they also have the most delicious sausage gravy i have ever been exposed to.  steve ordered an omelet the size of a third grader: it was too big for my macro lens to capture the entire thing in one shot from my seat across the table. i'm pretty sure we're both still full from breakfast yesterday.

so now it's straight on to the fourth of july this thursday.  it will also be a full year since i started working for my current employer this week (yay more vacation days now)!  steve gets friday off of work, but i do not so sadly our plans won't be able to fall too far in advance.  worst case scenario there's always dominick's sangria.

what are your plans for the holiday?

this lovely place

this lovely place is the private beach on lake michigan my family visits every summer.

for the last three years steve has come up with us and every year i've told him my childhood fantasy: summer home here, winter home in disneyworld.

my parents are already there (lucky dogs) and steve and i will be joining them this weekend, and let me tell you we have not stopped talking about it for days.  we are both so excited for hours of walking the beach, swimming in the lake, laying in the sun, and feasting (because my family always includes hardcore feasting in our social events).

it's wet, rainy, and gross here today-- the kind of day when you just want to roll into a ball the minute your alarm goes off.  the kind of grossness that they invented tuesdays for.  unfortunately the forecast for this weekend is calling for isolated thunderstorms.  but this is a place even rain can't ruin.

this week should hurry itself along please.

what are your plans for the weekend?

p.s. i was featured in a "blogging 101" post over at the lovely meghan silva's blog yesterday.  do check out meghan's blog, she's always posting something beautiful, inspiring, or freaking delicious looking.  and she's a total dear to boot.