Our Weekend Getaway

We spent last weekend up north in Traverse City, MI for a little getaway.  We try to make it up north each summer, but the past two summers were not "normal", so we were happy to return this summer.  

We left of Friday afternoon and drove to Traverse City for the weekend. Our getaway started with a great dinner at a restaurant on Old Mission Peninsula...The Jolly Pumpkin.  It was our goal to eat only at local restaurants the entire weekend...and we were successful.  You can't beat local ingredients and delicious menus....and every local menu in TC has several dishes with cherries!

Old Mission Peninsula

On our way back to our hotel we caught the sun setting over the west bay.

We decided to try something new on this trip...wine tasting!  Old Mission Peninsula has seven wineries.  We made it to three of them...and it was so fun. We both really enjoyed it and are looking forward to going to the wineries we did not visit on our next trip.


Our first stop: Black Star Farms

Our second stop:  Chateau Chantal

Seriously...you cannot beat the views here...so beautiful!  Views of the west bay...

...and views of the east bay!

Our last stop was Bower's Harbor Vineyards:

On Sunday we took a walk along the bay and then drove north to Charlevoix.  Our intent was to relax on the beach, but the weather was a little chilly for that.  We strolled through some local shops and ate lunch overlooking the harbor.  


We love so many things about Northern Michigan and are blessed that it is only a short drive away! 

On Its Way!

We found out today that our dossier was authenticated in Washington DC and returned to Bethany in Grand Rapids. Which means...tomorrow our dossier is being sent to Ethiopia!  It seems surreal that all of our paperwork is actually going to the country where our child will be from.  Such a good feeling!


When our dossier reaches Ethiopia it will be translated and authenticated.  Then we will officially be on the waiting list!

Florida iMovie

Ok, so we are finally getting around to posting some pictures from the vacation we took at the end of April.  We travelled to Destin, Florida once again with the Sayers Family.  We love this area so much...we keep going back!  I think this was our 6th trip there! These vacations are very low-key and relaxing.  When people asked us what we did on vacation...we just hung out by the pool and beach, went for walks, hit the playground, ate some yummy food and ice cream too! 


I was not looking forward to the time it would take to post several pictures on Blogger, so I decided to try making an iMovie with still photos.  So, this is my first attempt...


Untitled from Stacey Lubbers on Vimeo.