Katrin's Visit

This is Katrin, everyone. On one of her first days here, she rented a bike and checked out some parks in the area (one of the pluses of this town).

Later that day, we introduced her to the game of baseball by taking her to the batting cages, a favorite stop when we have Germans visit. Some of you may have already heard about my theory that Alex is going to bring baseball to Germany, one person at a time. So far, so good. All three of his friends from home that have visited have ended up liking it. Here she is in her swing stance.

That night, we had Mongolian grill for dinner -delicious!- which was a first for our foreign guest. The next night was fun at Comerica Park for the Tigers-Indians game. We had bratwurst at the park and stayed afterward to enjoy the fireworks, which the Tigers do after every Friday home game. I hadn't seen fireworks since New Years in Germany and I forget how much I love them (I am my mother's daughter!). Sadly, our decision to stay had consequences: our first encounter with severe rain and thunderstorms of the weekend occurred on the way to the car.

It was like movie rain, the kind that starts from nowhere and that the unwitting characters get caught up in. Yeah, that was us.

We went from this during the game...

...to this after the game (a little graphic, I know, but I really think you need to see this to appreciate how wet things were).

There were thunderstorm warnings throughout Michigan over the weekend, so we tried to hedge our bets and see some nice spots along the shores without getting dumped too early in the game. On Saturday, we went to Port Huron (little piece of trivia for you, that's the birthplace of Buttercup!), which was the first time for all of us to Lake Huron. It was such a nice spot: nice beach, not too crowded. We wandered farther north afterward and found the cutest little town, Lexington, thus reaffirming my belief that you find the best places when you aren't looking for them.

Here is the lovely beach at Port Huron and Alex and I enjoying it:

Here is the adorable town of Lexington:

On Sunday, we had planned to go to this great spot on Lake Michigan (St. Joseph), but there was over a fifty percent chance of rain pretty much throughout the state, so we decided to go to a metropark 25 minutes away so that we would be able to maximize our time before the storm hit. It was so hot out and the water wasn't that cold so I actually got to go swimming! So did Buttercup and man, did she enjoy the water. Eventually, the forecast caught up with us and we had to dash for cover. When the rain slowed, we packed up the car and went home, but it was a very relaxing afternoon (and weekend in general).

Look at how cute my girl is in the water!















I love this shot of Alex having a smoke and a laugh after we were forced to the covered area.









The next day, Katrin's last, she and I went shopping. She really wanted to get a sweatshirt from "the Aberfitch Crombie" (I tried correcting her, but not as hard as I could have cuz it was just too cute!). As it has become a traditional way of bidding German visitors auf wiedersehen, we went to the Crab Shack for snow crab that evening. As always, it's hard to believe it when our guests have to go. Even when they stay for two weeks, the time just flies. It's always a little sad for a while afterward as well, even for me, because it reminds us how few people we know here and how much we miss our friends.

Mama to Michigan!

I have been gearing up for my mom's visit to Ann Arbor for a couple of months now since she booked her trip way in advance. Still, I never got over being excited because 1) she's my mom and she's coming into town (hello!) and 2) I never thought she'd make it to Michigan because I complain about living in Ann Arbor so much that she wasn't exactly thrilled to hop on a plane for four and a half hours to check it out. She is on a long list of people who promise to come visit me in DC and have little (well, let's be honest, no) interest in making a trip east before then.

Things started off a little shakily, with my mom and Mark (my stepdad) not bothering to ask us for directions to Ann Arbor from the airport, getting themselves lost, and almost missing our (that is, my mom and I's) pedicure appointments. We quickly rebounded by arriving in the nick of time here. My mom said it was the best pedicure she'd ever had (it was a Mother's Day present, so hers included a peppermint wrap, paraffin, and some other bonuses as well...I couldn't afford to give myself the star treatment as well, so I went with your basic pedicure), so I considered that a success! After that, my mom and Mark met our puppy, Buttercup, for the first time, much to her excitement, before heading out to dinner and microbrews here.

I was proud of my mom and Mark for getting up relatively early to make the fairly long drive (about four hours) to Benzonia, MI near the Lake (Michigan, that is), a remote (that's polite, really) location selected because it's near a spot where the Platte River feeds into the Lake. Last year for Memorial Day weekend, Alex and I went there and it was unseasonably warm- we happily swam in the juncture where the two bodies of water meet- and it was also an ideal fishing spot for my boy! Alex and I had checked beforehand to see what the dog policy was here because we wanted to be sure we could take B-cup along, so we went to our little spot on Saturday (Mom and Mark stayed behind to take a nap)...only to find out that 1) they don't allow pets beyond a certain point- the point we were interested in going- because it is a nesting area for some bird species (if you actually clicked on the last link it specifically says that pets are allowed from the Platte River Campground to Lake Michigan- exactly where we were!) and 2) that the water was freaking cold and that only a few fish could be spotted. Oh well, Buttercup was very well-behaved while I read my book and Alex found out that he couldn't fish there.

We got back to the hotel, only to discover that Mark was intent on watching the first game of the Stanley Cup Final, thus thwarting my plans of watching Indiana Jones at this drive-in movie theatre (although, to be fair, I highly doubt my mom told him I had wanted to do that...and I seemed to be the only one intent on making this a reality).



The weather in the month of May had been pretty lame, with temperatures in the fifties for a shocking amount of time, but a reprieve was rumored to be on its way: the forecast was in the seventies, with mostly clear skies for the weekend. Well, as usual, the meteorologists in the Detroit area managed to keep their jobs despite being completely wrong. As we finally ventured out to the Lake, after being delayed by rain, the winds changed and dumped us again. After about five minutes on the beach. Literally. Oh, and this spot that Alex and I had been to our first summer in Michigan (the water looks like the Caribbean when the weather cooperates!) doesn't allow dogs near the sand dune we wanted to go to either. Yay. So, we cut our losses: Alex went fishing on the Betsie River and later we all had dinner and margaritas at the Roadhouse, a cute Mexican bar and grill near where we were staying.



Alex and I hoped that we would get one last shot at enjoying the Lake by stopping in Frankfort, which is known to be a bit more tourist-y than where we had been so far, on the way home, but for reasons I won't get into, we ended up driving straight back to A2. We checked out this burger joint my mom and Mark had seen on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives called Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger. It was delicious!



So, although our trip was not the beach-bumming, fishing experience Alex and I had hoped for, it was soooo great to see my Mom and find out that Buttercup + long car rides = no problem!