April goes to Washington

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A couple of weeks ago JB and I went to Washington D.C. to visit his bro Austin and our new(er) SIL Lauren. I had never been to D.C. before, and as someone who likes America and History and Family, I was set to have a good time.

And I did! (So did JB!)

Here's our Top 10, chosen by me (you'll be able to identify the usual suspects in most photos, but Lauren is the ghost in the long shot of the Lincoln Memorial):

10.) Went to a fabric shop in Fairfax, VA. Fail. The place was nice, but all the fabric was sorted by color. Which defeats the purpose of buying matching fabrics from a particular line! Which is what people like to do! The fabrics are spread all over the place and you cannot find what you're looking for. I got a few things. But it wasn't as exciting an experience as I hoped it would be.

9.) Watched the series finale of LOST with JB. We cried and cried and cried. It was a great finale. 

8.) Went to the MegaMall in Tyson's Corner. Money,  money, money. They had stores there that I've only seen in magazines. Like United Colors of Benetton. Naartjie. L.L. Bean. Shopping there really hammered home how downtrodden the Michigan economy is right now. This mall had big name stores, little to no sales or clearance racks, bright lights, and even brighter, happier shoppers. Michigan malls seem so funeral-like compared to that place. However, I still scored a megadeal at L.L.Bean. There was one lone sweater on the sale rack. One lone red cashmere sweater originally $100. I got it for $25. My first cashmere sweater. Or part-cashmere. I don't care. Even 10% cashmere would make me feel glamorous!

7.) Lost all four games of Ticket To Ride (Europe) that we played. I tried and tried and lost and lost! But you can't go wrong with building your own trains through Europe so it was fun anyway.

6.) PUPPIES!! Puppies, puppies, puppies!! Took a harrowing car ride in and around curves, up and down mountainous road, to see Austin and Lauren's future black lab puppy (and 9 others). By the time we got there JB, Lauren and I were about to vomit. Austin was perplexed at our sickness. JB explained to him it was because he was the driver and was not subjected to the chaotic ride. He drove as carefully as he could on the way home. We all felt much better. Though perhaps we were just riding in on our puppy euphoria. 

5.) Smithsonian! There are a ton of Smithsonians. We hit up the American History one. Most of the exhibits were not as impressive as I had thought. Perhaps the hundreds of people milling about everywhere were the problem. JB and I dug seeing the Julia Childs kitchen and now he has agreed to do our next kitchen with all wood cuttingboard countertops. I am thrilled. My other huge memory from there was the Vietnam War exhibit. I saw an actual helicopter that had to fly in and out of the warzone chaos, picking up dead and wounded. It wasn't like the big helicopters that rich people buzz around in. It was dinky. Like smaller than my kitchen. Vietnam vets are some brave mother f'ers.

4.) Went to the Holocaust Museum. A great experience. Very disturbing, though. Why didn't more Jews or good Germans revolt??? How did that much mass murder happen in modern day?? I held it together until I walked through the boxcar that had taken Jews to one of the concentration camps. I thought of all the babies and little kids who had to squish in there and who died by the time they reached their destination. Imagined being a mom and a.) watching your child die in front of you, and then b.) having to hold that dead baby for days in a cramped car. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

(Did you know that Denmark refused to play the Nazi's game? They resisted till the end. Go Danes!)

3.) Walked through Arlington. I don't care what the liberals say: God Bless the U.S.A.

 2.) Saw WWII and Vietnam Memorials at night, as well as the Lincoln Memorial. If that don't make you proud to be an American, nothing will.

1.) Rode to the top of the Washington Monument: AT NIGHT. Tours are closed to the public at night. Unless you flirt with the security guard like Austin did. :) The view was amazing. Unfortunately the windows were clouded over on the outside, so I didn't get a stellar shot, but I'm sharing what I did get anyway.

Labor Day Weekend

We spent Labor Day weekend up at the cabin. We had vacationed there in July, when it was cold and rainy. When we returned in September, it was bright and sunny and the water was 70 degrees! Weird!

Day 1:

Mark kept throwing a ball far into the bay for Lexi to chase, and then another ball near to the shore for Lucy, who doesn't like going into the water if she can't touch the bottom (she usually just jumps from rock to rock). Most of the time she did not feel that the ball was well-placed enough for her preferences, and would just stand on a rock, staring alternately between the ball and us, as if to say, "You'll have to do better than that."

...and she would do that until Lexi, having fetched her own ball out in the bay, swam back to snatch Lucy's ball, too. Of course, no water is deep enough to keep Lucy from besting Lexi.


O played with Grandma:

and read with Nana:


I took photos of pretty things. Surprised?



That night JB, Grandpa, Mark, Marty Feldhake and I went salmon fishing. Well, I did not fish; I was the staff photographer. No fish were injured in the making of this trip, much probably to PETA's pleasure, but our dismay.

Grandpa and Mark fished from Pooh Bear. The lake was smooth as glass!


JB and I took to the waters in Marty's boat.



Us girls also went shopping in Detour, where Olivia wowed the shoppers and shopkeeper with her love of jewelry. Marian would put a bracelet on Olivia's wrist and Olivia would hold out her arm to admire it. She's a girl through and through!

We also stopped at my favorite jeweler's: Dave's Up North. He seems to have erratic hours, so it was a treat to see him open. Oh, the treasures! There were 3 pendants that I loved, totaling $375. That's affordable, right? :)

All in all, it was a fun first day!

3.) Bats!

JB and I are big fans of This American Life. We’ve listened to almost all of its shows, including a segment titled “The Hills Have Eyes.” It is a true story about a woman who was attacked by a rabid raccoon and her near-disaster experience with trying to get a rabies vaccine (which costs thousands of dollars, by the way). At one part of the show (14:35 minutes in), the interviewer took an aside with the audience and said that rabies is REAL and DANGEROUS and if you ever find a bat in a room where someone was sleeping, you need to have that bat and/or person checked for rabies, as they may not have known that they were bitten.

That, coupled with Michael Scott's Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run for the Cure, has made me very serious about rabies.

So when I learned that the squeaking I heard in my bedroom in the cabin was a bat and not a mouse, I was a little unnerved.

But just a little, as it was apparently in the walls, and not actually in my room.

We heard them for two nights, scratching and squeaking in the walls, and in what sounded like the heat ducts, right by my side of the bed. Marian said she’s heard them in the cabin for years.

The next day, as Mark fetched something from the cubby hole/attic space right next to Olivia’s bed, he discovered a dead bat and showed it to us.

Aha! Mischief managed, I thought. I didn’t know that bats live in droves.

A few hours later I take Olivia to our room to nurse her and take a nap. I grabbed the blanket out of her bed (it was chilly the whole time we were up there!) and threw it on my bed and sat down next to it. As soon as I got situated with her, I reached out to grab the blanket to pull it over us. Then I noticed that my hand wasn’t about to grab the off-white blanket, but something black and sinister instead.

A bat! In the blanket, 7 inches from Olivia’s head!

Eeee!

Then it started squeaking.

Eeeee!

I actually wasn’t as frightened as I would have been if it was a mouse or, God forbid, a snake. I probably would have cried if it had been one of those. The bat didn’t disturb me, but the idea of rabies did.

So I summoned Mark and JB for help, and they removed the bat, which was fortunately stuck in the blanket, and not able to fly around and get stuck in my hair. Or bite Olivia.

That night Marian and Austin counted 38 bats flying out of the roof, on a hunting expedition. Mark speculated that there were probably 100 in there in total.

Eee again!

Grandma and Grandpa found one flying around in their bedroom the next morning. They opened a window and it flew out. Grandma commented that she didn’t know what all the fuss was about over these bats. I should have pointed out my rabies concern to her, but I did not. I was trying to be brave, I guess.

Mark and Marian found a guy who took care of the problem. This man rigged a sort of tube and flap in the hole that the bats flew in and out of. They could fly out at night to hunt, but upon return, could not go back in past the flap.

The in-laws said they counted over 100 bats leaving the joint.

Good riddance, you blind creatures of the night! Christian Bale may make bats seem sexy, but I know better. You can’t fool me, and you can’t come back into the family cabin and give us rabies!

4.) Narnia

On Tuesday of our vacation a group of us took a hike to Narnia. Narnia is a magical place near Cedar Campus that makes you feel like you’ve stepped out of the wardrobe and into C.S. Lewis’ imagination. After a quiet and picturesque journey through the woods you find yourself walking in between massive moss-covered boulders and in and out of more trees. Keep walking and you’ll eventually come to the turquoise waters of Lake Huron. Narnia was discovered by Cedar Campus (perhaps even Grandma and Grandpa Hunt, though I’m not sure), on part of protected state lands next to its property. They have since received permission for their campers to enjoy the place, as long as no one wrecks anything.

I have always loved walking to Narnia (well, hiking in the woods IS one of my favorite things) and enjoyed taking Olivia to one of my favorite places.

I wish I had taken photos of the paths between the boulders. Another time…

They recently replaced the old Narnia lamp and sign with this. Tacky. I checked eBay for a better one. No dice. Someone may have to go to England and get a real one to bring back.

Austin jumping off of a boulder into the shallow bay. Very safe. Correction: very safe if you’re crazy like Austin.

A pair of swans visited us in a little inlet. The one in front was hissing at us a lot. Probably because three of us were pointing cameras at them and trying to get close. But still. We were there first! They just floated on up to us and then copped an attitude. Rude swans. But still pretty. Someone pointed out how perfectly clean their bodies are, but how their necks are dirty because they can’t reach them to clean them. Interesting.

7.) Calendar Girl

Remember that one time, when I learned that my photo was picked to be in the Les Cheneaux 2010 calendar?

I saw said calendar at Safe Harbor Books in Cedarville last week. I got excited and flipped to the month of August, where I expected to see my photo. Instead I saw this lame photo of wooden boats. (I typically would like this photo, but since it was replacing mine, it was lame.)

Dismayed, I relayed this to JB. He then pointed out that my photo wasn’t there because it was the COVER photo.

Der! No wonder the front of the calendar looked so familiar!

8.) Hearing Chris speak at SLT

My favorite kind of preaching is Bible Exposition. For those of you who aren’t hip to the Believer community, Bible Exposition is taking a specific text of the Bible and breaking it down. It is not topical preaching. It is not preaching that pulls verses from here and there, with the verses sometimes being taken out of context. It is what I consider a pretty pure look at the Bible.

However, a lot of churches these days don’t do Exposition. The mega-churches of today seem to draw crowds by speaking on topics. Some churches even thrive on the “prosperity” gospel. Which is just a man standing in front of a group of people each Sunday telling them that God wants to bless them, and that if they stick with Jesus, their lives will be happy and shiny. It seems as if these guys haven’t heard of this thing called the BIBLE. Jesus’ life was not happy shiny. People were mean to him. People constantly pestered him to heal them. He had no privacy. In the end, he was nailed to a tree and left to suffocate to death. If being a Christian meant that all your troubles would go away, everyone would be clammering to do it, even if Jesus meant nothing to them. That’s not how God rolls. He promises peace and rest and contentment. Not eternal sunshine and $$$.

Anyway, my life is deprived of good exposition, so I was thrilled to hear Chris speak at what was originally the School of Leadership Training (SLT) at Cedar Campus. InterVarsity apparently has changed the name to Leadership Institute. Lame. “Hey man, you going to LI this summer?” “Oh, yeah, LI is so awesome!” Sorry guys, but SLT sounds way cooler. Fail.

Chris spoke on Acts 19 and 20. Olivia let me listen to the Acts 19 part. That was nice of her. Grandma Marian had to miss that, though, while she walked her around outside. Then I had to take her. I sat with the Bird in a nice Adirondack chair on the backporch outside the meeting place and tried to listen to the Acts 20 part while I nursed the baby. While sitting there, two beautiful swans swam up to the shore that was about 30 feet away. Nice. (They paid us another visit in the Vacation Top Ten’s number 4.)

Fortunately, Chris had a handout for everyone, so I could piece together parts that I had missed.

Chris and his wife Liz are also good friends with the Hunt family, so we saw them more than on that Sunday morning. He is also the man who married Austin and Lauren. He is a lover of the water, and the Hunts have dubbed him “swims with loons” after he did just that. It seems that no water is too cold for Chris, who took a dip on our Narnia walk and enjoyed the canoe at the cabin. He also sat next to me for the Top Ten’s #2, which I was grateful for because of his swimming abilities.

9.) Lucille and the Beach

One of my favorite parts of going to the cabin is watching Lucy run the beach. The first time she went up she wowed Grandma by running and running and running in circles on the beach at a breakneck pace, repetitively. Grandma was unaware of Lucy's dedication to aimless carefree running and was quite entertained by it.

This year proved no different, but with the added bonus of her bff Lexi accompanying her. Over the course of the week the dogs had several different people throw tennis balls for them. Most memorable were the Schreimer girls and their cousin. They marveled at how high Lucy can jump and how fast she can run. (A random couple who were walking the beach also marveled at Lucy's abilities--apparently it's legal to walk the beachfront along the lake, even on private property, and these people were not shy about walking through our yard. The man said that I should enter Lucy in races.)

Typical Chewba beach routine:

• Run.
• Run.
• Run.
• Watch tennis ball get launched into water.
• Consider racing Lexi for it. (Only like going in cold water if there are enough rocks to hop in order to get to my destination.)
• Let Lexi chase ball while I bark at the human's feet.
• Jump up very high in attempt to steal human's other tennis ball.
• While Lexi swims back with her ball, watch other tennis ball fly down the beach, not in water.
• Tear up sand chasing ball and barking madly.
• If Lexi is out of water by then and chasing new ball, will easily outrun her.
• Bring ball back, shaking it in mouth in very fierce, vigorous fashion. I am to be feared!
  
• Listen to human tell me to drop it.
• Or, I mean, DON'T listen to human's command to drop it.
• Prance around with ball in mouth, wanting it to be thrown again.
• Realize it won't get thrown until I drop it.
• Concede.
• Watch tennis ball get launched into water...

U.P. top ten: 10. Soo Trip

JB and I have decided to do an "Upper Peninsula" top ten, counting down the 10 most exciting/memorable parts of our vacation at the family cabin on Lake Huron.

So our number 10 memory was our trip to "the big city." Read: Sault Ste Marie. No, there isn't a mall here. There isn't Starbucks or Jimmy John's. You won't find a big museum or art gallery. Or a hot music scene.

But they've got a Wal-Mart and TSC, which I bet is big city enough, if you ask any Yooper.

JB, I, Austin, and Lauren first hit up Karl's Cuisine, our favorite Soo restaurant. While we are partial to this man who catered our wedding and made our wedding cheesecakes, Karl really is a great chef. We met friends and fellow Spartan alumni Mike and Cassie Panik there for lunch. The last time I ate at Karl's, I had this amazing chef salad. I wanted it so badly yet again, but also wanted to branch out and try something new. So I got something new. And a side chef salad. Which really was more like a regular-sized salad. Plus a large piece of our wedding cake: turtle cheesecake. I ate all of it. Then we got a massive stromboli and two pasties to go. A trip to the U.P. really isn't complete without pasties, ya know.

After lunch we went to the super awesome Soo movie theatre, where they take American Express, but they don't take Visa. Who doesn't take Visa??? Hicktown movie theater. Who doesn't have a Chase ATM within a 50 mile radius? Hicktown Soo. (AND Hicktown Nashville, I learned. Definitely can't move to Tennessee now!)

We saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I enjoyed it.

While there, we saw giant movie posters advertising Tim Burton's latest adaptation: Alice in Wonderland. Has anyone else seen the scary Johnny Depp rendition of the Mad Hatter? It's even freakier in bigger-than-life movie poster size and you're minding your own business at the theater when BAM! there it is. This happened to me at a Grand Rapids theater. Celebration Cinema is lucky I didn't have a full bladder because they might have had a mess to clean up.

I love Alice in Wonderland and also Johnny Depp, but seriously, I don't like his Mad Hatter. CREEPERS. He looks sort of like Madonna here, if you ask me. However, the colorfulness of the other posters won me over, so I want to see it. Just not the part with Johnny Depp. Then again, I was fearful about watching Transformers, and ended up loving it. We'll find out March 2010 if I pee my pants in the theater or not.

We're Baa-aack!

I couldn't resist. I just started to look through the 631 photos I took on vacation in the U.P. last week (yes, I may have a problem) and one of the first shots was this stellar catch of dogs at play. Yes, Lexi is completely in air, like Lucy. JB and I have talked about doing a vacation top 10, so I will post more photos as we post our list, but I just had to share one...

(the girl in the photo is JB's second cousin, Clara. Or first cousin once removed. Something like that. A nice girl.)




Oh my gosh. I just found more "dogs having fun." Agh. Will have to do "dogs having fun" post.

Oh, yeah, and we humans had fun, too. :)

Laurel Falls, Tennessee

Last week JB, Olivia, and I took a much anticipated vacation to Tennessee. We spent the first half in Johnson City with the Biers (Marian's brother Tommy and his family) and then drove 4.5 hours to Nashville for five days of festivities surrounding JB's brother Austin's wedding. (Yes, apparently weddings are more than a one-day event in the proper South.)

We did many things, so there will probably be several posts about Tennessee.

Today's post is about our hike to Laurel Falls, a 55' waterfall along the Appalachian Trail near Elizabethton, TN. We set out with Uncle Tommy, Aunt Rhonda, Lydia, Nathan, and their cousin Kyle. Apparently there are two ways to get to the falls. The first way is a more circuitous way, and the Biers took cousin Sarah and Dave on. We spiced things up and took the other trail, which is shorter, but more arduous. Much of the trail was pleasant and easy, and very picturesque, like this:

I liked this because JB was carrying Olivia in a pack on his back and this seemed a safe, reliable route. At one point we walked across this narrow bridge. The mom in me was nervous about JB and the babe, though JB seemed to have no fear. Even though his feet were this close to the edge of the bridge:

Horrible scenarios kept running through my mind of him tumbling off some edge like this, or off into some ravine, with little Olivia getting crushed by JB (who would get beat to pieces himself) and impaled with branches and brush. I trusted that this would not happen, but I had to be prepared mentally.

As we neared the falls we could hear their loud rushing waters. It was very neat. As we hiked closer and closer, the falls got louder and louder. But the trail still had us walking way above the falls. Then came the hike down to the falls. According to an online brochure, it is a 1/4 mile going straight down. There are stone steps along the way, some seemingly placed there, others seemed carved out of the mountain. I am kicking myself for not getting a photo as evidence. Uncle Tommy counted the steps on the way back, and there are around 277. And these are not evenly-spaced ones that you'd find in a building. They're mountain steps.

It was a crazy hike down, and my legs felt like Jell-O at the end. But it was cool. Especially seeing the falls at the bottom. So we had a packed lunch, and then JB and the kids decided to hike to the top of the falls (look for then at the top right of the falls):

Aunt Rhonda, Tommy, O, and I enjoyed the view from the bottom, until Olivia decided to drop a deuce. Try changing a baby when there are nothing but jagged rocks to lay her on! Aunt Rhonda was nice enough to offer her lap. Shortly after this slight fiaso, the kids returned from the top of the falls.

"Where is JB?" we asked them.

"He's not here?" asked Lydia. "He left before us a while ago."

I thought that she was joking.

She wasn't.

JB had left about five minutes before them, but there was no sign of him, or their dog Greta, who went with him. We tried calling him, but the falls were too loud for our voices to travel. I had prepared myself for my husband and daughter to get broken to pieces in a ravine, but not for solo JB. I began to wonder if this was a serious situation, but my heart of hearts knew that he was okay, but we just didn't know WHERE he was okay.

Then he appeared.

Apparently the trail back to the bottom of the falls was not clearly marked, and JB got on some hairbrained path that went up some other part of the mountain, then down this very steep hillside/ravine, etc. And on and on until he somehow found his way back. His legs to got bruised and cut, and at one point he had to carry the dog, because she wasn't making up the mountainside herself.

By the time he returned to us, it was time to hike back. Back up the 277 steep mountain steps. I had been quite sick with headaches on our trip, so JB decided to haul Olivia himself again.

Only crazy people choose to rehike this after their first adventure! Biers, you are crazy!

Remember my post about JB outwalking my sister and I on our trip to East Grand Rapids? Well, you add my headache and Jell-O legs to the mix and I was walking really slowly on the way back from Laurel Falls. JB walked right with me on the way back. He did not race ahead. He did not lead the pack. He even had to stop a few times to rest. But in the end he made it to the top, with his bruised and bloody legs, and an extra 22+ lbs on his back, which included a crying, then sleeping, baby. Olivia is not one to sleep when in a social setting, so she hadn't taken a nap yet that day and hadn't slept well the night before. At some point coming up the stairs her little baby body gave out on her and she passed out in the pack. And if you didn't know this, a sleeping baby is much heavier than an awake baby.


I love going on hikes and I loved this one, but I think that once is enough for me. Those stairs are not for the faint of heart! Though perhaps I should return to photograph the steps, if anything.

We're Baa-aack!

We have returned from our super-awesome vacation in da UP. I love going to the cabin and was very sad to leave it this morning.

The child in my womb has been furiously kicking my innerds and ribs, so I will have to write about our fun later. Here are some pics, though:

Good News Bad News

This week is filled mostly with good, exciting news. However, as luck would have it, it is also tempered with bad news. Fortunately, the bad news isn’t “end of the world” stuff. Since so much has been happening, though, I thought I’d just make a little chart instead of going into great detail over every little thing. Also, some of this is JB's good news, so he can write about that if he wants.

Good News	Bad News
We got a lot of yard work done on Saturday and the place is looking GOOD!	Our mulch for the yard still has not been delivered.
JB got a grill--YUM.	My vintage bike is not fixable like I had thought, so now if I want a bike, I have to buy a new one.
I got rhubarb from a friend and am making rhubarb jam.	My lemon tree is pretty much dead. Looks like everything got neglected when I got sick from pregnancy. :(
We’ve made plans to have a small vegetable garden this summer.	I gained too much weight last month (though I’m more concerned about it than my Dr.)—better get those veggies growing so I can lay off the ice cream!
The yard is fenced so now Lulu can run around with freedom.	Prenatal vitamins make me sick. The doc has me trying all sorts, but no luck. I’m close to swearing off of them.
JB got a whole week of vacation! (He had originally only gotten four days because everyone else hogged the days off.)	Our vacation will still be cut short because of a friend’s wedding (because all JB’s coworkers hogged vacation time and there was only one week he could pick).
My freelance project is almost done!!!	My eyesight is jacked because of pregnancy and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I have made plans to make curtains for all the upstairs rooms.	I do not have money to buy all the materials and curtain rods for all the upstairs rooms.
JB got a picnic table and has already sanded and stained it. It’s awesome.	I did not get into The Antiques Roadshow’s visit to Grand Rapids. Boo!