Why Working in a Library is the Best Job Ever

Here's what I got paid to do today:

1. Read books.
2. Watch two puppet shows.
3. Go out for dinner.
4. Go out for ice cream.
5. Check out a candy store.
6. Take a walk outdoors.
7. Pass out certificates to little kids.

Don't you wish you worked in a library?

Lightposts

The end of last week, I thought I was going a little crazy. I had never noticed that the lightposts in Belleville were a red/rust color. I asked Brian about it and he didn't think they had ever been that color before either. The beginning of this week as I was going into Belleville, I noticed that there was a work crew painting the lightposts this red/rust color. I thought that it looked a little strange with blue banners hanging from each one, but just thought they might want to change the look a little. This morning, the mystery was solved. There was another work crew painting the red/rust colored posts back to black. We decided that the red/rust color must have been some sort of primer or something and the black is the paint.

It really is rather disturbing to wonder if you really missed something so noticeable for two months. I'm glad it wasn't just me!

Life in the Big City

It has been an exciting few days! We have ventured beyond Belleville and really enjoyed ourselves the last few days. Here's a recap of what we've done.

Thursday night we went to a new Metropark (Willow) to see the Detroit Symphony Orchestra perform a free concert in the outdoors. We made dinner and then lugged our chairs in front of the stage to watch the concert. It was an amazing concert and actually made me wish I had a bassoon to play. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed. I think our favorite song was "Habanera" by Bizet because we play Donkey Konga to the tune. I especially loved the patriotic songs they played as an encore.

Friday we both worked. I'm working on my first project for my job at the library. Once a month I will host a movie night for children/parents at the library. I had to work on choosing movies to show and making flyers for them. I decided on James and the Giant Peach for September (Roald Dahl's birthday month), Monster House for October, Fly Away Home for November (National Aviation Month), and The Santa Clause for December. Any suggestions for the months beyond that? They have to be G or PG and family-friendly. Brian is also working on a project for work, so he is pretty excited to have something to do at work. In the evening we ventured to Ann Arbor to check out a new mall.

Today Brian's parents came to visit for the first time since we moved. They picked us up and we went to Cabela's for a while. It is great fun to look around that store. We then went to Automotive Hall of Fame for free with our library museum passes and drove past our church and my work on the way home. The museum was a good one, right by the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. There was a classic car show there today, so Brian got his fix of old cars in.

This week will be an interesting one since Brian will be in Sheboygan, Wisconsin the end of the week and I will be working different hours due to the end of the Summer Reading Club. We're back in GR next weekend to see friends, so we've got lots to look forward to.

Random Pictures

I was going to take a few pictures of my birthday presents from Brian and noticed I had a few random pictures on the camera. Thought I'd share them with you folks.
This is the stuffed guinea pig that Brian got me from IKEA.
I fell in love with it back in April the first time we went to IKEA in Canton.
It needs a name. Any suggestions?Brian also got me some lovely flowers to go along with the guinea pig.A few weeks ago we finally purchased a hair trimmer to cut Brian's hair with. I decided to take pictures to show what a wonderful job cutting hair I really can do. And his hair was really long, so you can actually see the difference.BeforeDuringAfter

We were home a few weekends ago and I went to Sarah K.'s wedding in which my sister was a bridesmaid. Here's her walking back down the aisle. The dresses were gorgeous!

We actually stayed in Belleville this weekend and had people come to us! Our friends Nick and Kelly were on their way to Canada, so they decided to spend a night with us. It was wonderful to have friends to hang out with again. It gets rather lonely when everyone you care about is 2 1/2 hours away.

We spent Friday night at the Metropark and Saturday morning at IKEA before they left to get to Canada for Nick to preach on Sunday morning. It was nice to hang out with them again although I am a bit confused as to why Brian is buying them a Vibe before I get one. ;)

This week we plan to go to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert at the Willow Metropark on Thursday evening. It's free and I'm very excited about going! I haven't heard good music in a long time!

It also happens to be my birthday on Wednesday, so we will be going out to eat sometime this week to celebrate that. Something better than McDonald's even! And I have a free ice cream at Coldstone's, so we definitely will be taking advantage of that.

I will post a slide show of pictures from our North Manitou trip from Memorial Day soon.

Frankenmuth and First Day

I don't have any pictures from Frankenmuth (I left my camera in the car!), but we had a great day! It was wonderful to see Grandma Jo and Fred and spend some time with them. We had lunch at Zehnder's and then browsed the bakery/gift shop. We got to see Katie's new car and then Grandma Jo and Fred left to go back home. My family went over to Bronner's and picked out our ornaments for this next Christmas which was fun. We then stopped at Birch Run and shopped a few stores. We could definitely go back though because we didn't even get to half of it!

Yesterday was my first full day at work. I spent most of the day looking through book catalogs and browsing the collection to become familiar with it. I sat in on a teen writing group and was very impressed with what the girls were writing! I also sat in on Baffling Bill's magic show with 3-6 year olds. We had three kids leave crying, but other than that, it was great! We got to pet Gus the bunny and even see a few tricks after the kids had left to see how they had done it. I'm looking forward to going back on Friday because I will get to learn the circulation program so that I can check out books.

Miles on the cars

This past week has been busy, but good. Here's an update on what we've been up to.

Wednesday: Brian went to work. I went to downtown Detroit to fill out paperwork for my new job. The drive there was all right. I had to pay $11 to park for an hour. I waited 45 minutes for the woman who I had an appointment with to spend 5 minutes filling out paperwork. It wasn't really worth it, except that it meant I could work in a library. After getting back home, I packed and headed to GR. When I got there, I ran a few errands with my mom and then we headed to Holland for Oma's birthday party. My cousin John was here from San Francisco and my cousin Michelle was here with her family from North Carolina. It was great to see my family and spend time with them since we missed out on Christmas this past year. We took some family pictures. Click here to see them.

Thursday: Brian went to work. I woke up early to go to the eye doctor since I was in town. I got new glasses, but don't have them yet. Mom and I ran some errands and had good lunch at El Arriero. In the afternoon I drove back to Belleville. We finally got our fitness card for the fitness center here at our apartment complex, so we were pretty excited about that.

Friday: Brian went to work. I spent the day reading "Memoirs of a Geisha" (very good!) and picking up and packing again. After dinner, we drove back to Hudsonville to spend the weekend with Brian's parents. When we got there, we drove out to Drenthe for ice cream and to search for a house that we didn't really know exactly where it was.

Saturday: We spent the morning running errands. We got rid of my desktop computer and Brian bought a carburator for his Firebird. While Brian worked on his car a bit, I finished my book. In the afternoon I went to Sarah K.'s wedding with my mom. My sister was a bridesmaid and my dad had gone to Midland to celebrate his mom's 80th birthday. Brian sort of got his Firebird running again and flushed the coolant in his Intrepid. In the evening we vegged and watched fireworks in the distance.

Sunday: We went to First CRC to see Brian's friend Nick preach. It was rather strange to hear a friend in front of church leading the service, but he did a great job! We were both very impressed! We got to see Eric for the last time before he moves to Florida to teach and got to see Katie while she is home for a little while. In the afternoon we went to visit Brian's grandparents. Brian's sister and brother-in-law also brought over their daughters and a new car for us to see. In the evening we drove back to Belleville.

Monday: Brian went to work. I braved the downtown roads to be at my new employee orientation for Wayne County. It's definitely not fun to be downtown Detroit at 8:30 on a Monday morning. I spent until 2:00 listening to an HR person read from a book all the policies and rules for Wayne County employees. After this was over, I went directly to my new job at the library. I spent about 2 1/2 hours there. I met people, got some reading club t-shirts, and went through a preview box of bug books. I work again on Wednesday for longer, which I'm looking forward to. This evening we went to Michael's and picked up the picture from our honeymoon that I had framed (finally!).

Tomorrow Brian's working and I'm heading to Frankenmuth to have lunch with my grandma for her birthday. I'm looking forward to seeing her since I haven't since before Christmas. Brian has another business trip planned for the end of the month which he is looking forward to. He'll be going to Sheboygan, Wisconsin to visit Kohler. This weekend Nick and Kelly are coming to visit and we're looking forward to that too. Perhaps I'll have some pictures from Frankenmuth to put up later this week.

To GR and back...and back...and back...

After going camping, we spent about 5 hours doing laundry before heading out again. We went back to GR so that we didn't have to leave early Saturday morning. Friday night we took my parents bikes to get some pop from the store and then vegged on the couch with the cable. :) The extent of our fireworks were listening to the neighbors shoot some off outside.

Saturday was a fun day! We spent the morning cleaning the car from camping, picking up hay bales, and forgetting to cut Brian's hair. We then headed out to Eric's trailer at Gun Lake. We spent the day on the pontoon with the jet ski and brats. It was a very relaxing day and great to spend with Brian's friends. I am already missing hanging out with them and everyone's not even gone yet! We got ice cream at night which finally satisfied my craving for a twist cone. We finally left Gun Lake at midnight and decided to drive back to Belleville. Needless to say, when we got here at 2:30, we went right to bed! And we actually did get up for church in the morning!

This is actually a busy week for me! Normally I spend all my days at home alone until Brian comes home from work, but this week is a little different. Yesterday, Deb and Amy came to visit since they were at IKEA for the day. They are our first official non-family guests! And we're hoping that more come in the future. ;) Tomorrow morning I have to venture to downtown Detroit to fill out paperwork for my new job which will begin next week. After filling out the paperwork, I will be heading back to GR/Holland for a party for my Oma. Thursday morning I have an eye doctor appointment and then will come back to Belleville. Friday/Saturday we will be heading back to GR for more fun! Three trips in one week is a lot! Saturday afternoon I will be attending Sarah Kamper's wedding with my mom and Sunday we will be hearing Brian's friend, Nick, preach at First.

We will keep you updated on how all our mini-trips go and how the stuff for my job turns out. Please pray that I make it to where I need to be tomorrow morning in downtown because I'm rather nervous about going that far downtown alone.

Crooked Lake Camping

This past Tuesday through Friday, we went camping at Crooked Lake Campground in the Pinckney Recreation Area. It was a rustic campground about 45 minutes from where we now live. There were only 22 campsites and we had one of the larger ones that was still a little private from the other sites. It was a great campground on a lake and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Above are some pictures from our week.

We did a bit of fishing which was lots of fun. We bought fishing poles and licenses the day before we went as an anniversary gift to ourselves. I did a lot of fishing with my dad when we were younger, so I knew what I was doing. Before we bought the poles, Brian kept asking me if I knew how to grab a fish and take it off the hook. I thought he was just asking to make sure that more than one of us knew how to do it because I assumed he did. Well, Brian caught the first fish and didn't know how to get it off the hook! As he was reeling it in, he wanted me to take a picture of it which I thought was strange since we'd have to take it off the hook out of the water anyway. I took his picture and then discovered that he didn't know how to grab it. So, I grabbed the fish while he used the needle-nosed pliers to take the hook out of the fish. Then he caught a huge fish (probably legal size) and I made him hold that one once we got it off the hook since he hadn't done that before. It was quite enjoyable to know that I knew how to do something that he didn't. :)

The first full day we were there we rented a canoe and went all around the lake in it. There were little "water paths" between two lakes and a pond through the lilies that were fun to paddle through to get to the next lake. The lakes were very clean with lots of wildlife and plants. There were a few houses on the first lake, but it was not a busy place like many lakes we've been to.

The second night it rained rather hard. We were huddled in our tent after running the paddles and life jackets back to the canoe. Part of our campsite became a lake that ran right into our firewood which was hidden under the car to stay dry. After a little while of huddling in the tent, the DNR came around to tell us someone had seen a funnel cloud in the area and we should go to the bathrooms by the swimming area at the next lake over. We spent a half an hour in the bathrooms until they told us we could go back. Everything was fine, but very wet. It rained more that night too.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. We had fun walking around, fishing, and making food over the fire. It was a nice relaxing time to spend together in the outdoors.