Summer Recap, Part I

Oh, hello. Indeed, I haven't forgotten about my little blog space here on the world wide web. I've actually been itching to get back and write here for weeks upon weeks, during which time you may have noticed my neglect.

But this past summer has been one of the absolute busiest we've ever had. If we didn't have house guests one week, then we were traveling to and fro the next week, meeting up with friends and family.

So I thought--now that we're {ahem} well into Fall--I would play catch-up a bit. Before I go back to June, I thought I'd start with the most recent: a lovely extended visit from my dear friend, Jane. You would have met Jane on my blog before, as I first met her when we worked together in England. Then Jane paid me a visit when I was working in Hungary during Matt's deployment.

We had a fabulous time together exploring our charming little suburb, visiting my hometown of St. Joseph, taking a trip to my parents' house in Dayton, and even showing her the nice parts of downtown Detroit. Our days were filled with coffees, teas, ice creams, shopping excursions, dining out, making homemade meals, the cinema, picnics in the park, and {of course} lots and lots of snuggles with Makenna.

Jane brought a large box of PG Tips for me {one of Britain's most-popular tea brands}. You can find these stateside
but, of course, they just taste more British coming straight off the plane.

A visit from Jane wouldn't be complete without some silliness! This random prop is parked out front of an ice cream stand.

We got up and headed straight to the shores of Lake Michigan on a bright, glorious morning in St. Joseph. Makenna decided to make mischief and dig into the contents of my purse.

I showed Jane how to look for beach glass at our favorite secret beach.

These two sure adored one another. It made my heart melt every time!

I kept telling Jane that until she saw Lake Michigan in person, she couldn't understand how much it looks like an ocean {and she agreed}. That's true, really, of any person who has never seen Lake Michigan. I am so blessed to have grown up along these gorgeous waters.

Trying out Clementine's famous onion rings.

A visit to St. Joseph is never complete without a sunset stroll along the pier.

Makenna remains to be such a versatile, easy-going baby, making traveling with her a breeze.

I wanted to visit the Detroit Zoo with Jane, but seeing as how it was 94 degrees that day, we decided to take a picnic to the park instead and lounge in the shade.

As always, Jane and I shared so many giggles. She really is one of the dearest, sweetest souls you'll ever meet. The world is so much better just because Jane is in it.

And naturally, being around Jane brought my jealousy of NOT having a British accent to front and center. Although, after only a day or two with her, I easily slid into my old habits of using words and phrases like "bits" "rubbish" "corridor" "car park" "buggy {stroller}" "nappy {diaper}" "trousers" "post" "queue", many of which I used regularly when I worked in England. And it reminded me how much I really prefer a lot of British words and phrases to our American ones. They just sound nicer to me.

It was very sad, indeed, to see our lovely visit come to an end.

From here, I'll back it up to June and recap our summer adventures!