Going UP

Remember that little part of Michigan that screws up the glove-shaped nature of the state? That's right, the Upper Peninsula, also known as eastern Minnesota, the U.P., Pasties Land, or Southern Canadia*. It's a scenic place, comprised mainly of national parks, fishing holes, and little town bars with "Moose" in the name somewhere.

Enter Blake & Jeff on a long weekend camping trip to the Porcupine Mountains. We left Thursday after work, driving the seven hours north, stopping only for gas, dinner, and some wonderful pastries at this quaint little "bakery" we found.

Okay so we only took a picture, but any adult bookstore with an on-site bakery AND a stuffed deer on top is truly worthy of mention in my book.

After arriving really late into the tiny little town of Ontonagon, we crashed at Scott's Scenic Lodge, which was replete with stuffed bears, deer, and mounted fish in the lobby. After a quick breakfast at the local greasy spoon the following morning we hit the trails, hiking some ten miles or so along Lake Superior to a gorgeous little campsite. Oh, did I mention that we later found out the gorgeous little campsite came with tens-of-thousands of biting flies? After hours of misery, praying for God to smite all insects within a ten-mile radius while thunderstorms loomed on the horizon, we frantically broke camp and hiked several miles more into the hills to the next camp site (but not before I got off a quick shot of our assailants).

After another beautiful day of hiking, bumping into all sorts of characters on the trails, we found our way to one of the most incredible campsites ever, located on a small peninsula on the park's famous Lake of the Clouds. It was picturesque, it was perfect, it was as windy as a presidential campaign debate. Seriously, it was WINDY. And despite an amazing scene during the day, thunderstorms hit us again that night, and the wind pounded our little tent.

Despite many obstacles, it was a great trip, even though we did not see a single moose.

*Yes, that's right "Canadia", eh.

The 4th - Michigan Style

Independence day is known for many wonderful things, icecream, fireworks, icecream, family, icecream, silly hats...

Woohoo, silly hats! We wandered up to northern Michigan to have a silly hat party on the 4th of July with Grandma Smith. Nostalgia is the best word to describe most of the experiences there, while much of the area has changed, so much hasn't (case in point: Grandma's shag carpet). It's a trip down memory lane in many ways, and it was great to see Grandma who is still as active as ever in her little corner of the world.

Oh, and it was a lot of driving to get there and back, we think it drove Blake to madness.

Something Heavenly

Here are some lyrics to a song we can relate to these days. Is God safe? No, but He is good.

Sanctus Real - Whatever You’re Doing
From the album We Need Each Other

There’s a wave that’s crashing over me, and all I can do is surrender
Whatever You’re doing inside of me It feels like chaos, but somehow there’s peace
And it’s hard to surrender to what I can’t see,
but I’m giving in to something heavenly

Time to face up, clean this old house
Time to breathe in and let everything out that I’ve wanted to say for so many years
Time to release all my held back tears

Whatever You’re doing inside of me It feels like chaos, but I believe …
You’re up to something bigger than me

Larger than life, something heavenly

Zimbabwe

As many of you know, last summer, we had the opportunity to travel to the southern part of Africa. As part of our travels, we visited Zimbabwe. If you have watched the news lately, you have heard of the turmoil in that part of the world. The people there are dealing with the decline of their country, which once was considered the breadbasket of Africa. Now, they are dealing with crazy-high inflation and what appears to be a corrupt government. Over the last month, Zimbabwe has been in the news because they were trying to hold fair, and democratic elections. After it was becoming clear that the opposition had won, and ousted the sitting president Mugabe, the government tampered with the election results such that a run off was required. Well, in the time it took to get to the run off elections, so many people were killed and beaten that the opposition leader fled the country. It is a terrible situation where power is used not for good, but to feed pride. Because of our travels, we remember the people of Zimbabwe as people. This news hits close to us. We thought we would share some of our photos of the beautiful country and the people we met along the way.

Victoria Falls Safari Lodge
Victoria Falls

"King George" as he called himself. He told us why his dream is to move to New York (he was in costume on our boat trip... he does not dress like this all the time)

Barb Barber

Through the glories of Facebook, I was recently able to reconnect with a good friend of mine, Barb Barber. Ahh…. I feel good just thinking about it.

This past Saturday, I decided to get in the car, and drive up to visit with her, meet her kids and have lunch. While, I have to admit, when I offered to drive up, I thought they still lived in Lake Geneva. I was wrong. The Barber family is now proud residents of Manitowoc, Wisconsin… Which is a little farther away… but I thought, “what the heck?!” so I did it…

Boy! Am I glad I did.

Hanging out with Barb is just wonderful. She is so positive, encouraging and funny. I love how she is able to look at any situation life gives her with an entertaining and practical way of dealing. She is an amazing person who I am delighted to spend time with.

Thanks God for Barb.
Oh… and since apparently, remembering the camera is not sufficient, you need to remember to TAKE photos… all I have to offer is a photo of the Manitowoc water tower (taken from the gas station, when I remembered I had my camera, after I left her house)

Argentina Night!

So, as many of you know, Jeff and I are going to South America at the end of the summer. We are going with one of his classes at school as part of their final project. I am pleased to say that I will have no homework to do during the trip. :)

As many of you also know, I enjoy cooking, and Jeff enjoys dates where we can have a good time for small sums of money. So, we combined all this, and had “Argentina Night” last Friday.

On a whim, we cooked a meal that turned out to be one of the best we have done in a while. It was coconut rice, black beans w/ bacon, and fried plantains. We also cooked some steak with a chimichuri sauce. I think I wanted to make this only be cause saying “chimichuri” is just so much fun. Chimichuri.

Jeff was in charge of the mojitos… and Madonna was in charge of singing “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” as we capped the night off with a private (aka: at home) viewing of Evita.
Fun Night.

St. Louis!

Congratulations Andy & Heather!

Allison's cousin, Andy, got married this past weekend... so, we drove down to join in the festivities. It was actually a little strange to be heading south for the Koch family, not the Goodenoughs… but fear not, we had a Judy & Gary sighting and were able to hear of all the pins, plates and screws that went into her wrist to fix what she did at New Years (see post below) … but I digress….

Wedding… we had a great time catching up with the Kochs…and as usual, drinking too much wine. Here are some fun photos of the Koch Clan.

The Days of Palatine's Lives

Our Small Group took this photo at our party... and I think it looks like a promo for the newest show on the WB or Soap Opera ... These are the Days of Palatine's Lives

Three - Ohhhh

Well… We have been a little delinquent in posting on our blog these past few months… Sorry! We both turned thirty since we have posted… we had a big party with our close friends and family. It was so much fun to see everyone get all dressed up and enjoy a wonderful evening. Thank you all for such a memorable celebration.

Not Dead & the Prom

So... wow! it has been 23 days since we posted... a little longer than we typically take between posts... we have just been so busy though! I (Allison) have been working on my final piece to completing Grad school... a paper (BOO!!!!) and Jeff has been super busy with lots of fun things at Kellogg... from working with the consulting club to getting ready for the GIM trip. You can check out the site for his crazy adventure here.

We did, however, get the chance a few weeks ago to get all dolled up and have a night out on the town for the Kellogg prom. We were able to hang out with our friends Simon & Stephanie who are soon to be relocating to Boston (BOO!!!). So, it was a nice time being able to chill with them and rekindle our shared love of Chinese Yo-Yos. Ahhh, memories