a wheelie cool father's day

We celebrated Father's Day at my grandparents' house this afternoon. My mom made a beautiful ice cream cake at Carvel's and my aunt cooked all of the delicious food. We relaxed all afternoon on the deck and then after dinner we watched Bend it Like Beckham with my dad (as usual, he promptly fell asleep ten minutes into it - I wonder where I get it from?!?).

The big surprise of the day was our new acquisition - a wheelie cool cooler - that my aunt Dani found on clearance at Target for $6. It's magenta and it's beautiful and it has wheels. Shinji and Nuku Nuku were very impressed!

craft project

Jon and I decided to tackle the wee bunny project seen on wee wonderfuls this weekend. I was pretty surprised to hear Jon say that he wanted to try out sewing, but given his love for all things stuffed, cute and animal, it shouldn't have been so shocking. We picked up the supplies at Joann Etc yesterday and started tracing, cutting and pinning. This project would have been so much easier if we (1.) had a sewing machine, (2.) knew how to sew, (3.) had a little bit more patience! We worked for a few hours yesterday afternoon and got most of the sides and ears sewn together. We finished up the bunnies this afternoon. Shinji and Nuku Nuku are quite impressed with our creations. Well, at least they liked licking the plastic on the polyester filling bag and chasing after the thread while we were sewing.

Here they are...our wee bunnies:

busy saturday

Jon and I headed down to Eastern Market to buy some fruits and vegetables. It took us quite a while to find the place due to highway closures and forgetting where it's located, but we finally made it. We picked up a ton of food...oranges, strawberries, rhubarb, lettuce, onions, peppers, scallions, pear apple cider and more...all for a little over $12. It was quite the deal. We're looking forward to lots of good food this week and I even made some rhubarb pie and zucchini bread yesterday afternoon - both a first for Jon!

After the market, we went to Joann Etc to pick up supplies for our afternoon craft project...more on that later. After getting started on our project, Jon suggested that we go out for a traditional date night. So, we headed to downtown Royal Oak for some Gelato Roma pizza and ate on the sidewalk (you reallly need to check out that website!). Then we drove to Birmingham, had coffee and tea at Java Hutt, walked around the city and went to see A Prairie Home Companion at the Birmingham Theatre 8. The movie was excellent. If you're a fan of the radio show, you'll love the movie. Definitely a different feel and style than other traditional hollywood films.

Tobermory

Catherine, Jon and I headed to the Bruce Peninsula in Canada for a Memorial Day weekend camping trip. We met up with the rest of our group at our campsite and enjoyed a relaxing weekend of hiking, eating, reading, and lighthouse viewing. See the rest of the pictures here.

around gr

Jon and I took a semi spur-of-the-moment road trip to Grand Rapids yesterday. We started off our trip at Mars Hill and heard an excellent message from Rob Bell (a must listen if you're bored or antsy with your current circumstances).

Afterward, we had hummus and falafel sandwiches in the grocery section of The Pita House in East Town. Note: Jon has decided to never eat a hummus sandwich again as he is still thirsty from it.

Then we visited the Frederik Meijer Gardens for the last day of the butterfly exhibit. The greenhouse was warm and filled with lots of kids and lots of photo enthusiasts. I have never seen so many expensive cameras in one place before! Jon and I had fun traipsing around the greenhouse in search of still butterflies. I even managed to get a few shots of the infamous Blue Morpho (can you guess which one that is from above?) - there were only 2 living ones in the greenhouse. We also got a chance to visit a few of the outdoor sculptures in the sculpture park, including Nina Akamu's, The American Horse (Leonardo DaVinci's horse), and the newly installed "Grand Rapids Arch" by Andy Goldsworthy. It was raining, though, so we weren't able to spend too much time outside.

We met up with Emily and David at Emily's apartment and had a lovely home-cooked meal and laughter-filled conversation. It was a quick trip, but we had a fun time seeing the sights and getting away for a bit!

Rodrigo's Spain

Jodi scored us awesome tickets to the DSO through her GM discount and we got to see Rodrigo's Spain last night. Sir Angel Romero was AMAZING! I don't know if he inspired me to learn how to play better or if he completely scared me away from the guitar altogether, though. There is absolutely no way in the world that I'll ever be able to move my fingers at lightning speed and make music like he does! But for now it's at least something to dream about.

What the?

Not exactly sure what this "creature" is, but it's been showing up in my yahoo mail box. Any guesses as to what kind of animal this is?