We're Back!

It has been a while since Alex and I have been working on the house or doing any blogging. We decided last minute to take a trip to Michigan to visit with family and take our own trip up north for our first wedding anniversary. Now, we are rested, tan, and ready to start some new house projects as fall approaches!

Here are some highlights from our "Pure Michigan" trip!

Of course we had to start by hitting the beach, there is nothing like a sunny Lake Michigan day at the beach, and we were lucky to get to play in some waves!

On the night of our actual wedding anniversary, Alex and I had dinner at Mangiamo in good old Eastown Grand Rapids where we got married.  It was wonderful, we even shared the same dessert we had on our wedding day.  Even better, they let us have dinner for free! It was so nice and special, the staff is still great there!

Next we were off to Traverse City to start our trip up north, we started by exploring town and doing a little shopping. We stopped at the Mackinaw Brewing Company for lunch and Alex got to sample their beers. He was pretty excited.

In the evening, we headed to Chateau Chantal, one of the most beautiful vineyards atop a hill in the Old Mission peninsula for some wine tasting.

We actually had never been wine tasting together so it was a lot of fun. Our favorite was the Rose Malbec.

We took a couple pictures of the vineyard. It is hard to tell but you can see Lake Michigan in the distance from the hill, it was gorgeous.

Then we were off to downtown Traverse for dinner, we like to check out more than one place usually if we are doing exploring, so we went to Red Ginger for a drink and appetizer. We ordered Sake, I have never tried it, so we did, and I will never try it again! Ick!

After Red Ginger, we went to Amical for dinner, we ordered mussels, and they were awesome! I usually can't eat mussels because they would make me cringe when I looked at them, but these weren't bad at all.

Then off to Mackinaw City! We crossed the bridge because I insisted on going to Castle Rock and to see a little bit of St Ignace, which sadly has gone downhill since we were little.

Here we are after racing up Castle Rock, lots of stairs, Alex beat me (jerk).

We headed to Mackinaw Island to do some shopping and sightseeing, we also went to a couple cute pubs and ate a lot of food that day.

Once we got back from our travels up north, we spent a lot of time with our nephew Henri, he is almost 1 now and starting to walk a little, check out his cute hat!

We went to Binder Park Zoo with Alex's sister, brother in law, and Henri. He loved to point at all the animals!  But the best part by far was hand feeding the giraffes!  It startled me at first (obviously, and I was mad that this was the only picture Alex got), but it was so cool! Their tongues are so long!

On our last day of the trip, we celebrated Henri's first birthday since we can't be in Michigan for his actual birthday, I can't believe how much he has changed in a year! Here is his topless cupcake photo with mom!  He dove in face first for that cupcake once she set it down!  It was hilarious and adorable!

 So that was our little Michigan trip!  Loved every minute!