Candy's visit

Aunt Candy came out for a great visit, Friday through this morning. She even came prepared with plans for all day Saturday- spending it at the Frederick Meijer Sculpture Gardens in Grand Rapids. We had a great time and were very surpised at how impressive these gardens were! In addition to some great sculptures, they have extensive tropical, arid, carnivorous, wetland, and perennial gardens. It was a lot of fun walking around there. It was too bad she couldn't stay longer, but we're really glad she came out.

From Candy's visit; trip to Meijer Garden

From Candy's visit; trip to Meijer Garden

From Candy's visit; trip to Meijer Garden

Garden around the house

I'm not going to name which one, but one of our mothers requested more garden photos. So, I went overboard and took more than 40 pictures to give her a good idea of what we have around the house. We just planted some ajuga, goldilocks, and asiatic lillies tonight that some friends gave us at our house warming party this weekend, but we don't have photos yet.
Here are a few of the highlights:

From Garden around the house

From Garden around the house

From Garden around the house

Trip to Israel

Aimee's dad, Dave, was in Israel for 3 months on sabbatical at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, and her brother Art has been living on a kibbutz with his fiance Luda for 5 months. We were able to take a trip over there with Lucy, complements of Dave's frequent flier miles, for a 10-day vacation.

From Trip to Israel

We saw some awesome stuff while we were there. We scuba dove and snorkeled in the Red Sea from Eilat. One of the days was at a dolphin reserve, so we were underwater with the dolphins. It was fun watching and hearing them swim by playing. The clicks and squeaks were very loud.
We took a day trip across to Petra, in Jordan. That's where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed, where they found the Holy Grail. We hiked about 1 1/2 hours down and up a canyon, seeing tombs and carved idols along the way. At the bottom, there were the most impressive structures, all carved into the rock. The Treasury (pictured) was believed for a long time to house treasure, but it turns out there isn't any there. Along with that, there is an amphitheater, some palaces, some more modest homes, and many tombs.

From Trip to Israel

We drove back north toward Rehovot, stopping at Mt. Masada along the way for a brief stroll up the hill. It was supposed to take about 45 minutes, and didn't take much longer, but even starting at 10 A.M., it was extremely hot. There was practically no shade, and the heat just bounced off the rocks all around. At the top, we saw ruins from the settlement of Jews who were surrounded by Roman troops and committed suicide to avoid becoming slaves.

From Trip to Israel

We had a couple days of rest at Rehovot, where we swam and walked around the Weizmann. We also spent a fun afternoon in the Garden of Science, where they have a lot of large science demos to teach some basic principles.

From Trip to Israel

From Trip to Israel

We had a full day guided tour of Jerusalem, which was fantastic. Everywhere you turn, you're looking at something historical. The current street level in many parts is 30 feet above what used to be the roads. Civilizations just keep building on top of whatever was there before. We took a couple tunnel tours: one of a water stream people used to have to walk through to get their water safely; the other of the Western Wall, most of which is under the Arab quarter.

From Trip to Israel

From Trip to Israel

After that, we had a day in the ports of Joffo and Caesaria. The latter is a big deep water port built by Herod, that has the most impressive ruins still standing that we've seen.

From Trip to Israel

From Trip to Israel

All in all, it was a fantastic trip!

Getting settled in

We finished moving our stuff over a couple weeks ago, and are doing pretty well putting things away. We haven't stopped enjoying the summer though, so we have a lot left unplaced. Instead, we've been biking, going to yoga, taking care of the garden, and relaxing with friends. There will be plenty of winter to spend putting things away.
We don't have any recent photos of the place with furniture, but here are a few (and more in the album if you click the link) of the house and relaxing with friends at the house.

From Getting settled at the new house

From Getting settled at the new house

From Getting settled at the new house

First time grilling

Last night, we had Paul and Kendra over for our first grilling at our house, even though we aren't completely moved in yet. I have to say, it felt great knowing we'll have that place a long time and it's ours. It was a fun, relaxing time, as grilling often is.

From Grilling at the new house!

Our new house!

We bought a house! Aimee went to its open house while I was down in Kentucky for Max's bachelor party, loved it, and we agreed to put in an offer before I even saw it (contingent on me liking it). I loved it too when I saw it after getting back, and thankfully the sellers countered with an acceptable offer. We're supposed to close May 28. Here's a picture of us on inspection day.

From Our new house!

It's been a long time since we've updated this, since I got a new laptop, have been traveling, etc, but we'll put up some new posts about the last couple months, and more photos of the house, soon.

Lou's Visit

I had a great time when Lou came out to visit me. She came when Steve was down in Texas, so we had lots of girl bonding time. We ate lots of good food, knit and crocheted at knit night, went to yoga, saw the butterflies, went to a quilt exhibit, watched movies and generally had a great time!

From Lou's visit

From Lou's visit

From Lou's visit

From Lou's visit