Cars and Beavers

Here's two pictures of my parents at the Henry Ford Museum on their anniversary.

Here's me in one of Ford's cars. You could actually turn the handle in the front and it would "start". You could also move all the pedals and handles.

Here's me by a beaver at the Detroit Historical Museum.

Libraries, Parents, Metroparks, and Computers

A lot has happened since my last post, so this post will be in sections to get you up to date on the exciting things that have happened in the past few days.

Libraries
Friday, June 13 I got a call from a woman named Karen at the Allen Park Public Library. She had seen my resume for another position that I had applied for with the Wayne County Public Libraries and was curious if I wanted to come in for an interview. She had a 20 hour a week opening for a Tween/Teen Library Assistant. Of course I said yes, so this past Wednesday I went in for an interview. The three women I interviewed with were great and I really felt comfortable with them. The library was very people and service oriented. Karen said they had a few more interviews to do before they knew for sure, so she'd call me the beginning of next week. Well, apparently they decided sooner since I got a call from her on Friday afternoon. I was offered the position and took it right away! I have to fill out some paperwork and go through some orientation, but I actually have a job in a library! I am very excited about this. I have definitely learned patience through this because I have been trying for jobs in libraries for over a year and now finally get one that I wasn't even expecting or applied for. God is good!

Parents
My parents came this last week Thursday and Friday to visit us. It was their 26th wedding anniversary on Thursday, so they spent the day at the Henry Ford Museum which they had previous tickets for. For dinner, we went to Cici's Pizza, which is an excellent pizza buffet. My favorite is the dessert pizzas. :) On Friday, Brian went to work, so I spent the day with my parents. We got free tickets through the library to the Detroit Historical Museum. We spent the morning there. It was a nice museum and we got to see quite a bit. After having lunch at Wendy's, we went to Ikea for a little bit and did a little shopping. When we got back to our place, my parents left because my mom had to be back in GR for a wedding Friday evening. It was nice to spend a little bit of time with my parents here.

Metroparks
Since moving here, we have seen signs for and heard things about Metroparks. We weren't entirely sure what they were, so we looked it up on the Internet. We found one that is not even 10 minutes from our apartment. Yesterday afternoon we decided to go and check it out. We bought an annual pass for our car. A metropark is basically a giant park/nature preserve. There are quite a few of them along the Huron River which goes from Lake Saint Claire to Lake Erie. There are picnic areas, charcoal grills, and picnic tables. There is a hike/bike trail. There are a few different places to fish in the river. There is an aquatic center with slides, a lazy river, and a pool. We took our rollerblades and went on part of the hike/bike trail. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the Metropark and already went back today! We're looking forward to doing some grilling there since we can't do it at our apartment. If you come to visit, we will have to take you to the Metropark.

Computers
Yesterday we had to buy legal sized paper to print off my job application. While at Best Buy, we looked at the computers because we were looking to buy a new laptop for me before school starts in the fall. Instead of just looking, we ended up buying one! I am now posting from my new laptop. I'm still getting used to Vista and all the new things on it. I still have to transfer my old documents and things from my desktop, so we aren't getting rid of it quite yet. We hope to be able to donate it to Love Inc. sometime.

Other than those exciting things, life is pretty good here in Belleville. Brian is learning more at his job and feeling more comfortable there. I am finished with my class tomorrow, so I will have a bit of time off before I start this new job. The week of the 4th, we are planning on going camping for a few days, so that will be a nice break away from regular life. Hopefully I will be able to post more often now that my class is done. Pictures will come soon.

Belleville Apartment

Here's Brian's desk where a futon will hopefully be someday to provide sleeping for our guests.

Here's the new desk that we just got last week and put together ourselves. It is nice to have a large space to do my homework.

Here's the other wall of our office. There's a closet and one of my bookshelves. It's a nice-sized office.

Here's our view from our balcony. There are apartment buildings all the way around the pond and the office with fitness center and pool are at the end that you can see. We're in the last building on the south side of the pond.

This is our dining room with the table we got from Brian's Great Aunt Grace.

Here's the kitchen next to the dining room. There's a little bar at the corner of the counter, but we don't have bar stools.

One half of the living room.

The other half of the living room.

The whole living room. I love the slider and window above it because it lets so much light into the apartment. The vaulted ceiling also makes it seem a lot bigger.

Here's the moving truck. They did a great job.

Our bedroom.

The other part of the bedroom.

The bathroom.

My favorite room! The laundry room! We can actually do our own laundry now whenever we want to. The room also stores our Christmas tree and all our camping stuff.

So there's a few pictures of our apartment. We'd love to have anyone come and visit us so that you can get a firsthand look at where we live. I'm going to post some pictures later of our backpacking trip to North Manitou Island over Memorial Day weekend.

Internet

For the first time since moving to Belleville, I am finally posting from our apartment! Yay! I'll post some pictures tomorrow.