Where I Live Wednesday: An Overview

*** Pardon the interruption!  I'm doing some re-organizing here today, so don't mind my mess while I make some improvements to the blog!***

"Where I Live Wednesday" will feature a different place in Michigan each week.  It will start out very local, with the immediate area in which I live (different areas of town, my house, stores and restaurants, etc. etc.) and expand over time to include adventures to other places in the great state of Michigan.

For my first post, I wanted to give a general overview of both Michigan, and Grand Rapids, where I live.

According to Wikipedia...

Michigan is the eighth most populous state in the United States. It has the longest freshwater shoreline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair.  Michigan has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds.  A person in the state is never more than six miles (10 km) from a natural water source or more than 87.2 miles (140.3 km) from a Great Lakes shoreline.

Michigan is the only state to consist entirely of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is often dubbed "the mitten" by residents, owing to its shape. When asked where in Michigan one comes from, a resident of the Lower Peninsula may often point to the corresponding part of his or her hand. The Upper Peninsula (often referred to as The U.P.) is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km)-wide channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The Upper Peninsula is economically important for tourism and natural resources.

Although born in the UK, I moved to Michigan when I was in 8th grade, and lived with my parents and brother in the small city of Tecumseh (I'll introduce you to Tecumseh in another post!)  I now live with my husband Travis and our small zoo of animals in Grand Rapids.

Again, according to Wikipedia...


Grand Rapids is located on the Grand River and is approximately 30 miles from Lake Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 197,800, making it the 114th largest city in the United States. It is the  second largest city in Michigan (after Detroit), and the largest city in West Michigan. 

Nicknamed the "Furniture City", the major industry in Grand Rapids once was furniture production. However, the city and surrounding communities are more economically diverse today, and contribute heavily to the health care, automotive, and consumer goods manufacturing industries, among others.

You'll have the opportunity to read lots of posts about Grand Rapids in the future, there is a lot going on here and plenty to photograph and introduce you to!  But for now, take a look at this video.  It is a little cheesy, yes, and some of the footage is a little dated, but it's nice all the same.  The accompanying song "My Giant Little Town" is written and performed by Brian VanderArk, of The Verve Pipe fame.  Grand Rapids is pretty proud of Brian and takes to using him in promotional things whenever possible it seems!  : )

Enjoy!




Come back next week Wednesday to start exploring my life in Grand Rapids!

Happy New Year!

How has 2010 been so far?

We had a great new year's eve... the best I've ever had in fact.  Alison & Noah, and Heather, Anthony, and Lily came over for snacks and drinks before we headed out for dinner.  Afterward... Alison, Noah, Travis and I checked out some live music at a bar down the street and counted down to midnight there.  We then headed home for champagne and games.  What a wonderful evening!

Stay tuned for Christmas pictures... I swear they're coming!  Until then, Happy 2010!

Christmas at Home

I am always impressed by the folks who are able to take beautiful holiday pictures with everyone looking smiley and their dog sitting nicely and looking at the camera (ahem... Meg and Matt Herr!)  For us... it's not so simple...

 

Ah well.  There's always next year!

Since we travel to both of our families during the holiday season, Travis and I do our "own" Christmas at home before the rush of Christmas begins.  For the past couple of years we've introduced stockings in lieu of a large gift.  I think it's fun to have multiple things to open - you can really take your time and make an evening out of it.

This year, we celebrated Christmas together in Grand Rapids starting with dinner at our local Indian place.  Yum!  We enjoyed a couple of martinis and some delicious grub.

We then headed home to open our stockings!  They looked so pretty sitting on the mantle...

It's so much fun to opening gifts together!  I got Travis Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation -- it's a tradition to watch it every Christmas at his parents' house.

I got a new wallet and some candles....

 

 

Travis LOVES olives... especially in bloody mary's!

And Bella just loves the wrapping paper...  : )

Travis' reading library is now stocked for 2010...

Woah... not sure what this is all about...

 

My loot...

Trav's loot...

 

But wait!  Santa came by a little early and dropped off a gift for BOTH of us!  Wasn't that nice of him?

And Bella and the cats were thoughtful enough to get us something as well.... aw....

We finished the night with popcorn and a flick... (I was REALLY excited about my new cozy socks!)

 

I hope that you and your spouse carve out a little holiday alone-time for each other this year!  Merry Christmas!

Baby It's COLD Outside!

The advantage of Travis and I sharing a car temporarily is that I don't have to drive in the snow. I HATE driving in the snow. In fact - I'm one of those people who is so nervous driving in the snow that I'm generally a hazard to others. Yup, snow + Joanne driving = bad news.

The weather people have been threatening this "terrible blizzard" for days. It's kind of become a joke around here actually - because there's been so much media coverage about our "winter storm" but nothing to show for it.

We finally woke up this morning to some snow...





All the schools are canceled, but I've really seen much worse. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about? We DO live in Michigan after all - this is pretty normal. That's not to say you'll catch me driving in it... I'll happily stay at home in my PJ's until the roads are clear again!

What a Weekend!

In the past two days...

1) Winter arrived... (yes, I took these photos out of my living room window because it was too cold to go outside!)



2) I found out I got a B in Statistics! Can you believe it?! Sooooo happy!

3) Tabitha, Napoleon, AND Buick all got adopted! (Head HERE for the full story...)

4) We (finally!) painted our living room! (I started getting some of the holiday decorations out, as you can see... and I need to hang some things on the walls... and I swear Oliver's eyes are not that creepy in real life!!!)





AND... we're going to get our Christmas tree today! Yeah! Stand by for the standard putting-up-and-decorating-of tree photos coming soon to this blog! : )

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

The Weekend

(from left to right, top row to bottom row -- click to enlarge)

1. Bella in the backyard - it was 72 degrees! 2. Travis raking leaves 3. My cup o' joe at our favorite breakfast spot - I was excited about the design on my mug! 4. Mariah's 12th birthday 5. Travis and I at "Opera Untucked" -- a fundraiser I worked on for Opera Affiliates / Opera Grand Rapids. 6. "Untucked" food 7. "Untucked" centerpieces 8. Apple basket decor at "Untucked" 9. Birthday cupcakes for Mariah

HAPPY MONDAY!

Date Night

Trav and I have been so stressed and busy lately that we carved out some time yesterday to head out on a date.

We checked out a restaraunt in East Grand Rapids we've been meaning to try for forever called Olives (thanks for the gift certificate, Phil and Kim!)

Highlights of the meal (other than spending time with my wonderful husband, of course) were the appetizer... (and I'm not even a big fan of mushrooms!)

Mushroom Crostini
Sautéed wild mushooms, toasted baguette, herb goat cheese, scallion oil, demi


Yummy (but expensive - yikes!) cosmopolitans for me (sorry Mum, no photo!)

And dessert... a tiramasu cheesecake. YUM!


It was really nice to get out and try someplace new. Thanks for a lovely evening, hubby!

Making Strides 2009

This weekend we participated (for the third year in a row) in the American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. Although I wasn't nearly as prepared for this event as I usually am - we managed to raise $300.00 in a very short amount of time. Thank you SO MUCH to all of our friends and family who donated.

It was a beautiful day, and we had a wonderful walk through Grand Rapids for a great cause. We also snapped some lovely photos!




Travis and I were so glad to spend the day with our dear friends the Hill's. After the walk we all headed out for some Pumpkin Patch fun... check back tomorrow to hear about our adventures!