We escaped the Charleston heat and humidity with a trip to Michigan, only to find that the heat followed us north. That didn’t stop us from enjoying a busy week full of friends, family and sun!

Right before the fourth of July holiday, there was another round of layoffs at work. We just went through this in February and already they’re cutting the workforce down. It’s tough seeing people you know lose their job, especially when they did absolutely nothing wrong. I’m writing this here because sometimes I need the reminder, even though I like my job and my boss, at the end of the day the numbers rule. It’s going to be hard to quit this job, but for all the times they say “it’s not personal, it’s business,” I need to remember to do the same.

And that was the start to my week-long vacation!

Kyle and I each took a half day on Friday, working in the morning, then driving up to Myrtle Beach so we could fly to Detroit. It’s a lot of driving in order to get cheap flights with Spirit, I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Car rentals for the holiday week were astronomical, luckily my family was very understanding and agreed to shuttle us around. Mom and Dad picked us up in Detroit. Their AC died on the way down, and Michigan temps are an awful lot like SC temps right now, so it was a sweltering three hour trip to Cadillac.

My parents invited the whole town over to come see us Saturday night, so we were able to catch up with a lot of people. We had planned on a bonfire but due to the weather we opted for water balloons instead, which explains the terrible lack of photos from that night.

On Monday night we went to friends house (the Potters) for tacos and caught up with all their impending twinsanity. It took their toddler a while to warm up to us but once she did, she and Kyle worked intently on some very important scribbles on her easel. She ascended her slide for the first time, until the mosquitoes started swarming. They’re leaving mid-week so we won’t get to see them much.

Tuesday was the party with Dad’s side of the family. I talked to a few cousins, in the past couple years they’ve all started families, now reunions are a veritable guessing game of “who’s adorable baby is this?” The family hosting the reunion held a surprise guest lecture from the missionary family they were hosting, their guest shared his story of persecution as a Christian living in a Communist regime (Romania). I think that’s about all I can objectively say about that family reunion.

Wednesday was the 4th of July. We went to the parade in the morning and snuck in a few more minutes of Potter time before they left for a long weekend. After the parade we joined up with Mom’s side of the family for lunch. Again, there are babies now so the dynamic of these reunions has changed a lot. Also, since there has been no rain recently, no one was too keen on fireworks. We called up some friends and they didn’t have anything going on Wednesday night, and we didn’t feel strongly about going to see a public fireworks show, so we went over to their house and caught up on their lives. It’s so good to see people again, I’m absolutely terrible about keeping up with people that I don’t see regularly, so we cram 1.5 years worth of friendship into these hours-long segments.

Mom is doing some rock landscaping, and she keeps threatening to make us haul rocks from the rock pile over by the wind turbine, but she has a huge pile of rocks already at the house. After dinner on Thursday, Dad wanted ice cream so we went out to a local ice cream shop known for giving the most giant scoops. After all that ice cream, I definitely needed a walk and I’d been meaning to walk out to the wind turbine anyway. So Kyle, Mom and I went for a walk. On the way back she scampered up the rock pile and started throwing rocks at us. She was pretty serious about having us haul rocks home. Like half a mile. Uphill. My arms were sore the next day

Friday morning we had to gets our ducks lined up early so we could head to the Platte river for tubing. Caleb and Amy arrived around 9am, and then we met up with the more friends (the Baneys). After she arrived we piled six people into Dad’s truck and headed north, with the Baneys not far behind us. When we arrived at the river it was the usual chaotic menagerie of kids and sunscreen and shuffling tubes and vehicles, but we eventually got to the river. It was one of the best floats I can remember, Michigan weather is so tetchy that a nice day is never guaranteed, but with the heat lately the water was nice and warm, plus it was a beautiful sunny day. Until the end of the river, of course, as we neared Lake Michigan the wind picked up and the water got much colder and soon we were all shivering. It’s not a trip to the Platte if you’re not shivering at some point. We ate lunch in the sun and then moved to the mouth of the river to skip stones for a while. Everyone else went straight from bathing suits to sweatshirts, the most I brought from SC was a tank top so I finally had to tell them I was too cold to hang out in that wind anymore.

Then we headed to Frankfort, Kyle and I both like Stormcloud Brewing so we thought we’d swing by for a pint. We were not the only ones with that idea, so instead of waiting half an hour for a table, we wandered around town until Mylan found us a good ice cream shop. Mom suggested Kyle and I pick up a sixpack to take home, so we drifted in to Stormcloud, but instead we ordered a pint to split and went out to the courtyard to enjoy it. Kurt came over and got a cider. Eventually all the ice cream eaters figured out where we were and stood on the other side of the fence while we finished our drinks. IT WAS A GOOD DAY.

On Saturday we had plans to go to Caleb and Amy’s for tacos (my little brother and sister-in-law), then on to Amy’s improv show. Well, the improv show was canceled so instead we had tacos then went to see the house they’ve put in an offer on. The part of Grand Rapids that they live in is so nice and walkable, I can see why they love it. In another life I’d love to have done the same.

Sunday morning we had to get up bright and early to make the trek to Detroit. Caleb and Amy dropped us off at the airport and we boarded a plane back to SC. We’d left our car with some friends, they weren’t home when we arrived so we ubered back to their place then hit the road. Nothing but a couple hours between us and whatever horrors happened onboard the boat while we were gone.

Back at the boat, there was no shore power (not too surprising), but no intense mold growth like I’d been concerned about, except for some potatoes that rotted in the heat. Luckily they were all pretty contained, as were the maggots, so we fed those to the fishes and cleaned everything up. We met our new neighbor, Randall, I’m sure we’re going to see a lot more of him. Oh, the power issue seems to be something loose in the pedestal, so we’ll have to call the marina and see if they can take a look at it. Oh, and the one other thing that happened the night we arrived home is that I woke up in the middle of the night because I thought I felt a bug. That turned out to be a giant flying cockroach, in my bed, violating every ounce of trust I had in the sanctity of my own home. I had a hard time sleeping after that.

I was going to end this post with a photo of a composting potato, but that seems like it may be crossing a line, so instead enjoy a photo of my brother and me in matching shirts (bonus: galaxy leggings).