We enjoyed a fun Labor Day weekend & made sure to fill it with some enjoyable things, both new & old to us. We traveled to Marshall, MI to visit the American Museum of Magic on Saturday morning & had a great time touring the space & viewing the amazing magic posters on the wall there – some of them were really beautiful & very interesting (the photo here is from their website & by Jim Klodzen).

On our way there, we stopped at the Roxy Cafe for breakfast – which was delicious & the menu was entertainment itself (here’s a fun blog post about the Roxy). On our way home, we stopped at the Dexter Cider Mill for fresh cider & hot cinnamon, sugar doughnuts – our first of the season & one of my favorite things about fall here!

Sunday, we headed to UM’s Work gallery on State Street to install Ryan’s piece in the Sub Terrain art show, which opens this Friday, September 10th. I can’t wait to see it all come together & it looks like it will be a great show – here are some photos I took of the show as it was in the process of being installed! Then, we watched our favorite football team, the Texas Tech Red Raiders, beat SMU; go Tech!

And Labor Day was a generally relaxing day of cleaning up the house a bit, watching movies & catching up on TV, grocery shopping, & making some AWESOME vegan chili – which Ryan has promised to post on our blog very soon…you should make this at home, it’s delicious!

And so, I suppose that fall is officially here – school has started back, we’ve had fresh cider & doughnuts, watched college football, & made our first batch of chili for the season…&, to be honest, that’s ok with me – fall happens to be my favorite season!

We had a wonderful 4th of July with family & friends & had such a great time at the Brighton Recreation Riding Stable on a trail ride. While we were riding horses, Ryan went mountain bike riding at the Brighton Recreation Area with friends & then we all met up on the lake there for a picnic. I can’t wait to go riding again – they even have a night rides & winter rides…sign me up! And, not only do they have beautiful, gentle horses & a friendly staff, they have a petting farm with the cutest, baby goats, etc.

Happy 4th of July!!! Enjoy some family, friends, fun, fireworks, & good food today!

Happy Father’s Day, we love you so very much Dad!

We traveled to Texas last week & took a trip to Guadalupe Mountains National Park on Memorial Day while we were there. It was hot (when we got in the car to leave, the temp outside was reading at over 100 degrees!) & sunny, but the scenery was beautiful! In the afternoon, a storm blew in & we missed the rain while we were outside, which was good; it just rained on our drive home a bit, which we didn’t mind at all. Ryan hiked to the top of Guadalupe Peak, which happens to be the highest point in Texas!

On our way back home, we got stuck in El Paso on the runway, due to bad weather, & had a layover in Dallas for the night before we could make it back to Detroit the next morning. It wasn’t pleasant being stuck in a plane & on the runway, in 100+ degree weather in El Paso, for almost 4 hours; but, I have to admit that once we took off it was worth it – the weather we saw on our way out of El Paso, in the air, was absolutely breathtaking! There was a dark, stormy sky with a rainbow cutting through it right down the middle on one side of the plane & on the other side of the plane was the most amazing sunset I think I’ve ever seen, with the mountains as a backdrop; the sky literally looked like it was on fire. On the flight to Dallas, we cut in & out between storm clouds & saw some pretty impressive lightning in the distance. And on the flight home to Detroit the next day, it was nothing but blue skies & lovely, fluffy white clouds.

For more photos from our trip, check out my flickr set here.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I read a quote by Tenneva Jordan that I thought was perfect for today, she said, “A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” Thank you, Mom, for loving us & for always leaving a slice of pie for us to enjoy.

We’d like to wish you a happy Cinco de Mayo! Many Cinco de Mayo celebrations include food, music, & dancing – all of which I like – so eat, drink, dance, & be merry!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!

Happy Valentine’s Day! For your Valentine’s listening enjoyment, check out Weekend Lovers Soul Mix by Erik Simmons (one of Ryan’s students at EMU).

I love love & I love to celebrate it; so bring on the chocolate, bring on the flowers (roses from Pot & Box), & bring on the Valentine’s pj’s (check out my sweet Valentine’s pj’s in the photo above)!

Ryan & I went out to dinner last night at Terry B’s in Dexter, MI to celebrate & had a delicious dinner. But, for tonight, we got all the ingredients for a great Valentine’s Day dinner at home (after his basketball game, of course).

We found a **recipe for Pasta with Goat Cheese, Lemon, & Asparagus on Epicurious & we stopped by Sparrow Market & Zingerman’s Deli (where we picked up this AMAZING peppercorn goat cheese) for all the ingredients for our feast & paid a visit to Everyday Wines for a great bottle of wine to pair with our meal. And, for dessert, we picked up chocolate covered strawberries from Schakolad & we’ll pair that with another great bottle of wine (I had this wine with a strawberry dessert once & it tasted just like fresh, sweet strawberries, yum!) that I picked up from Everyday Wines.

** We tweaked the recipe a bit here and there. Grill the asparagus coating it with kosher salt, coarse ground black pepper, and some dried lemon peel. Use more lemon zest than the recipe calls for and just toss the ingredients together when serving no need to pre-mix everything unless its for presentation purposes. Sprinkle a little bit of lemon juice on top when served. We also served the dish up with rosemary and garlic bread. For that we just took some minced garlic, chopped rosemary, and combined it with some Earth Balance and spread it on some thick slices of Zingerman’s Rustic Italian bread then baked in the oven at 375 until lightly brown. Next time we make the pasta we are going to add some sauteed onions (with butter and balsamic) into the dish.