Art Fair and Pig Gig- Good summertime Michigan fun

We've been pretty busy on the weekends taking advantage of the great weather and the fairs going on around us. Mid-July we went down to Ann Arbor to visit Steph (Steve's friend from Michigan State), which was the same weekend as Art Fair down there, and the opening of Dark Knight. We walked around Art Fair for a few hours and still didn't see everything. We liked the photos from a local artist, Mike Moats, so we bought a couple that we'll hopefully get framed soon. The birch leaf is going in the entryway and the frog will go in the bedroom.

After having fun at the Fair, we saw the new Batman movie and went out for Thai. We have been trying to take advantage of good ethnic food whenever we leave Midland because it's not really this town's forte.

Yesterday, we took a trip to Bay City, one of the three in the "Tri-City" area we live in, for the Pig Gig with some people from work. They had a petting zoo for kids and Steve, a dog agility races demo, various cooking demos, and all sorts of contests like bubble blowing or jalapeno eating. Oh, and there were a ton of bbq joints selling their meat, so we all tried different places. Surprisingly, my favorite was the Australian stand. It was a nice day baking in the sun.

Our new home

For those who didn't know, our apartment here wasn't available until July 11, so we were living in a temporary corporate-rented townhouse our first month. When we finally moved into our longer-term apartment, we had quite a mess. We had the movers take everything out of the boxes so they could take the packing material. We naively thought this would encourage us to get everything put away that weekend. It turns out, we've accumulated a lot more stuff than we realized because in Berkeley, a lot of this was tucked tightly away in our big closets.

It ended up taking us a week or two, but we finally have the place almost completely cleaned, and we love it! It's got a big deck with huge windows, so it's always light in the apartment. The vaulted ceilings make it feel big, and the cats love running around and perching on the walls that wrap around the kitchen. We even have a guest bedroom for anyone wanting to come visit! We have more before and after photos online, along with some updated pictures from other things we've been doing.

4th of July in Canada!

We were super Patriotic this year and went to Canada for the 4th of July. John (best man at our wedding) was in Toronto doing some business at Canada's Wonderland so we drove up to meet him. We had lots of fun hanging out and John even got us into the park which is HUGE. We went on the giant behemoth roller coaster and then headed out to water park to cool off on the hot day.

John and Steve

The mountain and waterfall you see when you first enter the park

New Loom!

Recently I got a new toy, a brand spanking new loom. It's a rigid heddle loom, which means I can't do any of the super fancy weaving patterns, but it costs 10x less than the fancy looms that can. So far it's been lots of fun. The loom is more limited than knitting. Really I can only weave rectangles. Fortunately there are lots of rectangular things to make. Also, weaving is MUCH MUCH faster than knitting.

Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom

Steve helping with the warping process

This is the first thing I made on my new loom. A nice standard scarf. I finished it in a day. One day! Can you believe that.

Dark Purple warp, light purple weft with pink accent.

Now really, who keeps putting these cat pictures up on the blog?
How many cat pictures do you need?
(answer: MILLIONS!!!)

New herbs for a new home!

So, we're here in Midland all moved in. We've been spending time exploring all of town, which is of course small and doesn't take much time, but it's been fun. One thing Midland has to offer is a good farmers' market downtown on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Coming from Berkeley, our expectations may have been a bit low for a mid-Michigan market, and we were pleasantly surprised. There are a lot of flowers available right now, and every time we've been, there have been more fruits and vegetables. Some are from California, but we'll ignore that. Everything we've bought has been fresh and tasty. They sell some herbs there, so we figured it'd be time to try growing our own again.

I tried growing some in Berkeley, but they unfortunately can't survive a large amount of neglect. Who'd have thought? I put them outside at our old place, so I never thought about watering or pruning them unless I was on my way in or out from school. Now, though, we've got these beautiful plants growing next to our large sliding door and under a full spectrum CFL. The Thai basil, with its large purple flowers (that we pruned after a day so it wouldn't stop producing leaves) and Greek oregano, tasted delicious on some pasta. We haven't had the mint (in its own pot to prevent aggresively taking over the others), but it smells great rubbed on my fingers. Even though we've only had them a few days, we're getting excited about someday having some real ground and a real garden. Until then, we'll survive with some potted herbs.

Congratulations Steve!

Or should I say Dr. Steve!

Trip to Sequoia

When the Guillaudeu parents came to visit we decided to visit the giant sequoias. The trip through the 100 degree heat in a non-air conditioned car was pretty brutal, but totally worth it. The trees were utterly amazing. I was there and I almost can't believe how big they are!

Steve is thrilled about the General Sherman Tree
Largest living tree - by volume

The senate grouping of giant sequoias
and a very tiny Aimee

Fallen Sequoia's Roots
and a Steve for scale

Laying in the paved "footprint"
of the General Sherman Tree

Beautiful spiderweb photo by Steve
Yes, it is covered in pollen

View from the top of Morro Rock

Super Honda goes under the tree

Crescent Meadow

Grizzly Falls