Mother's Day Weekend, Part 1

For Mother's Day Dan and I went up to Michigan for the weekend. We decided to check out the Tulip Festival in Holland, MI which is close to my parents house. People come from all over the world and the tulip fields we saw were packed with people.

Peony Tulips

My parents by the Wind Mill

 There were hundreds of different kinds of Tulips

All the different Tulip beds

Mix of different Tulips

 More Tulips :)

In front of one of my favorite kinds

Being "dutch" :)

 After walking around for a couple hours we headed over to one of the towns close to Holland and had pizza at my cousin's pizza place. We enjoyed sitting down for a while and eating really good pizza!

On the way back to my parents house we stopped at a huge Greenhouse that is at least 3 football fields big. And there was a new friend for Dan :)

Tulips

I love tulips and have been excited to see the ones I planted last fall coming up!

And one Sunday while I was at a Baby Shower for a girl from our church, Dan surprised me and got me tulips :)

And now for a random picture...I was chatting with my sister a couple weeks ago and looked out our guest room window, there on our brush pile was this little guy.

 Just chill'n on one of the branches :) I thought he was really cute

Bunny Cake

Dan had wanted a Bunny cake for Easter and it didn't work out so I thought I would surprise him when he got home from work last week. I had never made a Bunny Cake before and was really excited to see how it turned out.

First cake cut up and the second one cooling

Frosting and coconut applied

Decorated and ready to be eaten!

I was really glad I made it and Dan had no idea, the look on his face when he got home and saw it was priceless :)

Garden

Dan and I decided to put in a garden this year. We have spent a lot of time picking out a spot in our back yard that gets plenty of sun and our water hose will reach. On Saturday April 26 we decided it was time to get to work. Here are some pictures:

Before

Shoveling up the sod

Getting the ground ready for the tiller

 We rented a tiller to get it worked up deep enough for the plants. We have carrots and possibly potatoes to put in and for a first year garden you have to till deeper than the following years. And I know I am not in the pictures but I didn't make Dan do all the work, we both dug up sod, shook out dirt, and got the area ready to plant.

 Our plants and seeds

Phase 1 planted!

Some of our plants won't go in until this coming weekend or after, but our little plants are doing well. Our lettuces and broccoli are safe under milk jugs until they get big enough and we have time to put up a fence to keep out all our bunnies!

Visitors

At some point in the spring we usually have these guys stop by...a good reminder of how close to a lake we live.

Pittsburgh Part 2

To reach the overlook we road up in a cable-type car and then walked down the street checking out the different look out spots along the ledge. It was fun to see so much of the city and the amazing homes that sit on top of the hill.

View of the city from the parking lot

View from the top of the hill

Getting ready to walk 

At one of the look out points

The city and its bridges

After leaving the hill we headed back into the city to go to the Pittsburgh Pirates stadium to watch the game. We had good seats and really enjoyed the game; they had a lot of hits and run (which always makes it more exciting).

One of the churches downtown

Crossing the bridge to get to the game

The Stadium

One of the building across from the stadium

 Game time :)

Our seats

 Fireworks show!

The fireworks were amazing and we really enjoyed the game. For Easter we went to Sam and Emily's church, which we also really liked. Before brunch they took us to see the Townhouse they just bought and will be moving into in June. We had a nice brunch and some time to chat before we had to head home.