Monday, October 1, 2007

wow - a vacation

My best friend said it best last Wednesday at BSF - I don't get out of mentone much...

couldn't believe this sight - in Big Rapids, MI:


So it was quite a thing to go on a real vacation! Last year I went to Hawaii with my family, a Christmas gift from our folks. Everyone was shocked by that. This year I got to go to Illinois and Michigan with my Dad!

Dad's mum (yeah that would be my grandma) lives in Michigan and I've never met her! Dad and Mum took me in when I was almost 16. And they legally adopted me a month before my 26th birthday. I just never got to Michigan to meet Gram and she visited once but it was after I'd already moved here to California.

So I drove to Tucson and met up with my Dad. we flew to Chicago and stayed with his eldest brother and wife. I've meet them and they're great! Then we drove over to Michigan to spend the week with Gram.

It was really a cool trip.

Here's a few pics:

First, a house in Elgin, Il - this is the home I spent my first 5 years. I'd not seen it since. It was very surreal, I couldn't believe I was there... though I remember it being much bigger! But maybe I was just a lot smaller!

My sister has a slideshow on her blog of all the pics I shot in Elgin. I have 3 older sisters from my biological family.

Notice I'm wearing my Disapproving Rabbit T-shirt - a little nod to Cinnamon while traveling! Buy her book

go now... i'll wait...




ok, now that you have ordered Cinnamon's book, we can continue...

Uncle Mike and Aunt Maria live in a beautiful city called Highland Park and have a beautiful home. It was neat to meet them there, I've seen them when they were in Tucson but never saw their home.

I especially liked their patio out back - great place to read and do Bible study and just enjoy sitting and visiting with them...


Being from Tucson, AZ and then Southern California I am not used to the vast number of trees and green things. Yes, So. Cal. has some green but NOT LIKE THIS!

On to Michigan to meet my Gram.

It was amazing - when we got there the colors were just turning but by the end of the week they had changed quite a bit - beauty!

Gram was extra surprised because my younger brother came with his 10 month old girl that he and his wife are trying to adopt. We didn't tell Gram he was coming. (I have 2 younger brothers and a sister in my adopted family.) I had not even gotten to see his daughter so we all had a great time playing with her. I'm so proud of him - he's a great dad!

Gram kept us busy with things she needed around the house and I always enjoy helping my dad with stuff. I didn't do as much as I should have but it was fun to kick in where I could.


I never thought I'd get a chance to meet her so I was really blessed that my Dad gave me the trip. And I got to spend lots of time with him and that was cool.

Gram lives on a property that is vast and in the middle of Po-Dunk Michigan. We couldn't even get cell phone service. That was actually quite nice. Although I did go thru email and blogging withdrawals!

Here's a picture, at the end of the week, of the field her house in on - The colors were exquisite!

My pic does not do it justice at all!

So that was my trip. Sure there was a lot in between, like seeing Sulphur Shelf in the wild, something I'd till then only heard of from The Birdchick. That was cool. I met a frog that didn't want me to catch him, I don't understand why. But he was kind enough to pose for pictures while I tried to learn all the cool features on my camera...


But everytime I went to catch him he dove back into the stream... silly Frog.

It was a great week.

4 comments:

lgf said...

that was really cool that you got that trip! I'm glad you got to meet your gramma finally & to meet your niece. Thanks for sharing the trip w/me. Next time we're together you need to help w/my new blog.

lgf

Zinger said...

thanks Lisa. you're blog is great, you just have to decide what to blog about and do it :-) there's no real tricks to it! but i'll help if i can!
archi's mum

Anonymous said...

That trip looks like it was lovely. It's always nice to take a trip down memory lane and see the house you spent time in when you were younger. It's funny how we tend to remember them differently somehow, like they were bigger.

And I love the T-shirt, hehe.

I didn't even know you had a blog until I read it on Archi Ann's site! Archi's Mum has her own blog now ... look out! :D

Zinger said...

Yeah Katie it was fun - kinda wild to see the house! And I've had this blog for a while now but rarely updated it because Archi is always hogging the blogging! As you can see I don't even have my account, I have to post from hers! She's such a computer hog!
ca