Visit from Katie

The past few days brought a visitor from Grand Rapids - my sister, Katie!  She drove over here Thursday night after work and we went out to Applebee's to celebrate the fact that I am done with the work for my master's degree.  I had a very yummy blondie!

On Friday, we left in the morning to drive to Midland to see Grandma Jo and Fred.  It had been a while since Katie had seen them and wanted someone to come with her, so I offered to go.  We got there just before lunch time.  Our Uncle Don stopped by for a few minutes, so we were able to see him.  We then went to lunch at Taco Bell and Grandma bought us a special treat of cinnamon twists!  After lunch we went to the Dow Gardens to see their butterfly exhibit.  While we were there, we saw 16 of the 58 different types of butterflies that they had.  I even held one on my finger!  We took a picture with my phone, but I have no way of getting it from my phone to my computer.  :(  After we saw the butterflies, we went out for ice cream at Pizza Sam's in downtown Midland.  We spent the afternoon at Grandma's house and saw all the quilts that she has made for her future great-grandchildren.  Our cousin Lisa came over for dinner and it was good to see her again!    After dinner we drove back to Belleville where I beat both Katie and Brian in a good game of Settlers.  :)

Today we did a little bit of shopping at stores that are on this side of the state, but not on the west side of the state.  We went to REI and got Brian a new pair of running shorts and me a pair of running socks.  Katie got new shoes.  We then went for a celebratory lunch at P.F. Chang's in honor of my being done with graduate school (much rejoicing is needed!).  After lunch, we went to Trader Joe's.  We ended up with some bread, curry sauce, and dried apricots.  Once we got home, Katie left to go back to Grand Rapids.  It was great to have her here for a few days!

After Katie left, we drove over to the Apple store in Ann Arbor and Brian got a new iPod touch since his screen has been having problems for a little while.  Instead of offering to fix it, they just gave him a new one!  He now has to put everything back onto it, but at least he's not afraid of his breaking.  We played with the iPad a little bit too while we were there.  I like the iBook section of this, but I'm not sure we can justify spending that kind of money anytime soon!