icy beach etc etc

saturday night we met my parents and my grandmother at marcos bistro in grand rapids to celebrate my birthday.  we hotwired a deal on a plush hyatt hotel room and decided to hit the beach sunday morning since the snow has finally let up long enough for us to make it to the west side of the state.

we had hoped the weather forecast of 55 degrees would prove correct (i know, foolish of us right?) but we still had our coats packed and enjoyed the sun while the chilly wind swept over the beach.  steve tested the icy water, and decided we probably shouldn't try swimming (ahahahahah).

on the whole we had a very fun weekend catching up with pals on friday, stuffing our tummies with family on saturday, and braving the cold in the name of vitamin D on sunday.

and now that's it's monday we actually HAVE gotten some of that 55 degree weather!  happy week starter!

happy weekend recap

we have had the most beautiful weather imaginable lately. we had the whole weekend to ourselves and made the absolute most of it.  we're turning into old people or something getting up so early on the weekends, but we got a lot done and finally got a chance to have a minute to ourselves, which we've definitely been missing.

we had easy nights in, got some banking sorted out, got some engagement photos taken for our save the dates, and took a day to soak up the outdoors at oval beach on sunday.  i'm headed into winter kicking and screaming, but the weather's been nice enough to keep me forgetting that snow is a thing around here.  all things considered it was a pretty perfect weekend.  i'm ready for another one, but sadly can't forsee one for quite a while.  i think starbucks and i are going to be better friends.

hope everyone has a good start to the week!

word count: 31,103

that time we went to saugatuck

here's a few pictures from our labor day-day trip to saugatuck.  steve had never been to oval beach before and when we found a hiking trail through the dunes, we both decided it is lake michigan public beach #1.  at least in an accessible area south of muskegon.

happy thursday everyone!

word count: 24,890

photos of the summer

this was the $14 omelette steve ordered for breakfast.  my macro lens couldn't capture the whole thing in one frame.  it was epic, and smothered in easily the greatest sausage gravy i've ever eaten in my life.

steve is away in texas on business, so i've finally gotten around to dealing with photos from our summer.  i'm extremely happy to be getting a bit of a record put together to make note of everything we've done the past few months.  hopefully you'll be seeing more of our adventures!  i have to say i was surprised how backed up i let my memory card get.  we've got the cottage, chicago, san diego... it's been such a blast looking back on the memories and the fun we've had!

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.

oy vey

well i had planned on starting the week off with a recap of our lovely lovely weekend (we spent saturday night walking the beach at grand haven and sunday at the frederick meijer gardens and sculpture park in grand rapids).  unfortunately last night my laptop fell victim to the most grrrr-inducing computer virus ever and i couldn't get my photos uploaded to dropbox / i am still mad, pouting, and not interested in a computer-related battle at the moment.

so i'll have to satisfy you with a tiny instagram style preview of our weekend (unfortunately, since i had my camera, i wasn't so camera-phone snappy).  since i'm at work while i write this, and not busy troubleshooting my computer in safe mode, i'm hoping i still have a laptop when i return home.

in attempts to keep a positive spin on things:  today is steve's first day of big-kid-grown-up-job work!  i'll have to wait and hear from him how the new job is, but i am one pretty proud lady to have such a smart, handsome professional on my arm!

and as a super friendly public service announcement.  make sure to watch out for the FBI moneypak ransomware virus.  apparently i am far from the only victim of this garbage.

dear self:  why did you think going back to pc was a good idea?

(in all fairness if a mac got a virus like this i probably wouldn't have the option of troubleshooting my computer in safe mode, but lets not joke and pretend a mac would have gotten this stupid virus in the first place).

ugh.  somebody's got a case of the mondays.

spoiler alert: it's me.

weekenders

happy monday!!  hope everyone had as lovely a weekend as we did!

i don't know about you, but now that the weather is nicer we are living for our friday nights, saturdays, and sundays!  

the lilacs are in full bloom right now so friday after work we had drinks al fresco and went for another walk in the arb (nichols arboretum for the non-locals who read this blog).  "drinks al fresco" is a bit of a stretch actually since we were really just people gawking watching in the outdoor section of quickie burger.  let me tell you, some of the people who populate this city in the summer do not make me proud.  this place is a ghost town without the college foot traffic.

saturday we went apartment hunting and i got used to the idea of moving to a small town... i say "got" in the past tense, but i think both of us are still in the "getting used to it" phase.  we found a very cute little place though, and we're really really really excited about the big move (t.b.m.) coming up in a few months!!  realistically we are still going to be very close to AA and the rest of metro detroit (and of course the big D herself, but unless there's a tigers game or traveling exhibit at the D.I.A. we try to avoid momma D at all costs).

speaking of art museums, we decided to hit up the UMMA after we apartment-toured.  i'll post more photos later in the week but for now here's our instagram review.

i am actually kind of super obsessed with this picture.

in addition to just about everybody splitting town for the summer (at least temporarily), a bunch of steve's roommates went camping over the weekend.  camping is not high on my list of enjoyable things (i somehow ALWAYS manage to go on weekends with 30 degree evenings...), so saturday night we hotwired a room in south haven and road tripped across the state to have a beach day on sunday (it's soo wonderful having a more reliable car for such things).

sun-day was true to it's name and we spent the better part of the day laying in the sun and playing in the water.  it was still too cold to go swimming (if you click through you'll see we were somewhere in the 54-57 degree range... brrr) but we had the beach to ourselves in the morning and were all ready for a late lunch and some shade by the time the place got busy in late afternoon.  we are SO looking forward to a weekend at the cottage my parents rent each year... there is nothing better than having time to yourself on the sands of lake michigan.

it's great getting to start the week with such a fun look back at the last few days.  i'll catch up later with some more pictures of the art museum.  

and, again, for a live feed of our up-to-the-minute adventures:

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