Thursday, April 30, 2009

MI Fave #2 SPRING!!

Spring in Michigan is amazing.

Unless you have lived somewhere where it does this:

you could NEVER appreciate this:
I have lived in Utah where it snows, and snows even more than here in Michigan, but it is different. Michigan winters are DIFFERENT. But, since this is a post about the favorite things of Michigan, I will definately NOT talk about the winter....

I love that when there is a random "warm" day in March, you know, around 55 degrees, you see hoards of people out jogging, playing outside, walking dogs (does everyone in Ann Arbor own a dog, by the way???), and all in their shorts and tees! Love it!

I love the light greenish yellow glow that all the thousands of trees get when they start to bloom. They drop the same greenish yellow color on the streets below and everything seems alive. Two weeks later, poof, you can't even see branches anymore and the leaves are bright true green, full as if they have always been that way. (There aren't many trees like this in AZ, you can tell this girl is fascinated...)
I love that the trees that don't bloom green bloom PINK. And I love that I now have a daughter who loves pink and notices every single pink tree out there, and that is ALOT, mm, hmmm. These trees are awesome, little tiny flowers bloom really close to the branches so they look like fuzzy pink catepillars instead of tree limbs. They go from fuscia to light pink, eventually fall and turn green like all the other beautiful trees in ann arbor. Very cool, very girly!
I love that the sky is finally BLUE, with occasional white puffy clouds that actually have form to them (unlike the before mentioned evil winter...)

I love that Sam was confused and fascinated by his shadow because it was the first time in his life he had a chance to run around outside with a shadow following him.
I love the bright yellow Forsythia plants scattered throughout Ann Arbor. I love that our neighbor Flo taught us about forsythia and every spring when they start to bloom and we are driving around town we randomly shout out "Forsythia!!" every time we see these beauties.
I love the tulips and daffodils that pop up all over the neighborhoods, smiling at us, even through the late snowfall. It confirms that the snow will not overpower like it does in November, but that the sun and blue sky will be back. These flowers make me smile everytime I see them. You wouldn't have thought it'd take me 4 years to plant some of our own. It did. But we are enjoying them now and hopefully every spring I can think of my tulips and daffodils that are popping up in Ann Arbor, still making other people smile.I love that we can sleep with our windows open and feel the crisp cool air, but not freeze!

I love that I can run outside again. Hoooray!

Most of all, I love that we can spend all our time outside at the parks, on the trampoline, taking walks, doing bubbles or sidewalk chalk.... WHATEVER... it is outside and we are all much happier because of it.
Yes, we love SPRING!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Michigan Favorites

I told myself that if I ever started a blog, which I wouldn't, it would never be just a travel/events log. Well, I did start a blog, and it has become a travel log. Hate that! So, even though I am dying to post about our super fun Easter Spring Break trip to Alabama, I am going back to my initial desire to capture some of the every day memories of our lives. (I'm sure the AL trip will sneak in somewhere...)


Since our weeks are getting to the counting down stage, we decided to start posting some of the many favorite things we have loved and will always love about Michigan and our four years here. These are things we will truly miss about living in Michigan. Each individual in our family has different things we love and will miss, so we'll document as many as we can. Sounds fun to me! We'll see how we do...

For the sake of what is most on my mind right now, I will start with our house. We got an offer on our house when we were away in DC, decided it would be the best thing in the entire world if we didn't have to try to keep the house clean, accepted the offer and closed on it just last week. We are now proud RENTERS. It's time for another party!!! Who cares about trashing the place now? Just kidding... We have LOVED our tiny little box of a house! It has suited our needs perfectly and even though I don't want to share a bathroom with my four kids for the rest of my life, it worked well thus far.

So, top things I have loved about our house:

1. the BASEMENT
Ooooh, I love our basement. The best place to send the kids away from me, a place big enough for them to run and jump, play swords, make HUGE forts (and messes), do my craft projects and leave forever because I never finish them, have movie nights, fake camping nights, grown up game nights or kid birthday parties (I mean who needs chuck E. Cheese when you have a basement??). It is the greatest use of space a builder could make. In the long Michigan winters it has been a lifesaver and a blessing. If I don't have a basement in my future house I think I will miss it every day.

2. the THREE SEASON SCREEN PORCH
We so made fun of these when we started looking for housed in the midwest, but once again ate our words and have LOVED it! It is attached to our garage and sits in the back yard. We have had many a ragin' BBQ's in our back yard. We always serve in the porch, kids eat on the tramp or on blankets outside, and the parents try to hide from them in the porch (and stay closer to the yummy food.) Our own little family has many week night dinners out there, rain or shine. The metal roof makes the rain sound wonderfully alive and even though you can hardly hear one another, it is a fun experience.3. STICKY VINYL TILE
So this was a toss up between storage space and the tile. But really DIRT COLORED kitchen flooring changed my every day life dramatically, tile wins out. We had horrible white linolium that we had had in every house or apt we had lived in and I was at my wits end. No matter how often you swept or mopped, still dirty. We decided to put sticky tiles down, but didn't like it when we laid them out square. We turned them on the diagonal and loved it. And even though it was a bit trickier that way, it was way worth it. Now, word of advice: I would only recommend these for very temporary living, since we have had some trouble with some of them sticking. But, I am completely, totally, with passion recommending them for the fact that it makes your floor the color of dirt. I sweep, looks great. I don't sweep, it looks great! Mop? Who needs to mop? LOVE DIRT COLORED FLOOR!!! Plus, people always think it is real tile, and who am I to make them look foolish?? Love the floor! We have loved our house!