Pictures to come

There are lots of pictures of my week long trip to my folks' place, LL's parents rental cabin, Mackinac Island and Grand Rapids. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get them posted AND that they will be fairly decent. No promises!

Just to clarify about my entry yesterday, I actually had a very nice time on the island and with LL and her family. However, Mackinac is not a paradise and not without it's warts.

At the anniversary dinner for LL's parents on Friday, their kids gave them a picture that had been cut up into a puzzle, you know those picture-into-a-puzzle things you can get at Walgreens. On the picture they had written what their real present was, which was the trip to Mackinac with the kids and an uncle and his family. There were 12 of us in all, so there was lots of coordinating and planning involved, all of which went very well! Actually, the only problem (which turned out to be very funny) was that the location of the fake anniversary dinner on Friday had closed down at some point in the last two years. Too funny. Our entire crew showed up in the empty parking lot of the restaurant (empty except for some couple who had stopped to change their baby's diaper) at just about the same time. Fortunately a back up plan was in place as no confirmation of the reservation could be made and there was some question about the restaurant being closed (though not before we actually left for said restaurant).

Over the weekend we shared meals, flew kites (I watched), took a carriage ride, walked around downtown and watched the fireworks from a very nice vista (behind St. Anne's church if you're there in the future on the 4th). LL and I also rented bikes and rode the 8 miles around the island. It was a fun ride: no accidents (though there were some close calls) and my butt wasn't sore!

On her parents actual anniversary, July 4th, we got a private dining room at the hotel which the siblings decorated up and we had a nice private meal. There were appetizers and drinks before the meal in the room too and we were able to wander around the private balcony as well. Good times.

Tomorrow: pictures and Grand Rapids.