My New Life

Read all about it at:

www.minnesotawestons.blogspot.com

Trust me-- it will be worth your while.

Mini Vacation

My birthday is this week. Unfortunaely, Jim has to be gone from today till Wednesday and my birthday is smack in the middle. We are mainly celebrating this coming weekend, but a few days ago we decided to take the opportunity to travel up north a little bit. One of the places we stopped was the amazing little town of Empire where the Philip A. Hart Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitor's Center is located. I've been there with my parents when I visited them while they camped up there. The wonderful thing about the beach is that it is within sight of the Sleeping Bear Dunes, but not that many people go there, which is such a nice change compared to South Haven. we were able to walk right out onto the beach and pick any spot we wanted. We relaxed and took a nap in the sun and listened to the few other famililes that were out there. we didn't have time to go to the dunes, but definetly will later on.

The scenery was so beautiful and the day sunny and warm, but not oppressively so. We even encountered a bunch of turkeys wandering down the road. We're hoping to bogart one of my parents fishing and camping trips that are coming up so that we can go kayaking on some of the small lakes in the area and go to the dunes. There are also some wonderful restaurants in the area that are not too expensive.

This weekend we also got to see my friends Angie and John who were visiting from England. I got to see their new baby, Andrew John, for the first time. It was great to get to see their uber cute baby and catch up on things in their lives. It was also great to see Jessica, a friend of Angie's who I hung out with when Angie was here. We even ran into Lisa on her way out and saw that her scrapes from her bike accident are healing nicely. She really is evidence that helmets are a necessary thing when riding a bike or roller blading. I was happy that Angie and John were able to meet Jim, because she's been hearing a lot about him. as we left, she said, "You take good care of her," which made me laugh but he answered with a serious, "I will."

My New Job

I was just recenlty hired by Calico Corners Preschool and Daycare in Kalamazoo!!! I get to work with wonderful, exhausting, delightful children once again. It is part-time during the summer, but in the fall it will turn into a full-time position. I am excited because of the work, but a little trepedacious because after 5 years at St. Mike's there are many small things that are ingrained in me that may be different, will likely be different at Calico-- such as the proceedure for clean-up time, or how they do lunch, that sort of thing.

I am very excited though because my mom actually knows the owners because she does their payroll for them with the CPA she works for. My mom likes and respects them so it is a relief to know going into the job that they are upstanding people and to not have this vague fear that they may be psychos and hiding it.

The place is housed in Second Reformed Church, a congregation of mostly elderly people who have plentiful space left over. It is near the Congregation of Moses on Stadium near the campus of WMU. Another blessing is that I can still freelance with KWeekly and with any other places I want to when I am not working. Hopefully this will allow me to appeal to local small daycare centers and do some communications consulting with them.

Jon Burns

My work was closed last week. Unfortunately, one of my co-workers decided to make a bad choice, which resulted in the loss of his life. Jon decided to mix painkillers and alcohol and had a very adverse reaction.

Accoring to the online comment from our boss and Jon's roomate Wrifton, "Jon Burns went into the hospital today because of a bad cobmination of pain killers and alchohol. His kidneys have failed, liver has failed, and lungs have collapsed and more." He died on July 9 and last Sunday we attended the funeral after church. Our offices were clsed for the whole week becuase of Jon's passing and when we went back to work Wrifton had us change some of the furniture around and made some other changes.

I will remember Jon as a happy guy, humming away in the vault as he worked, who was so excited about making signs (a new part of the business.)

Please be safe everyone. Jon decided to party one night and sinply didn't realize just how over-the-limit he was getting. Everyone has commented upon how tragic it is--how the loss of a 21 year old is so futile, and I pray that none of you will ever make the same choices.

Victorious Lumina

Yesterday I was driving up Milham toward Westnedge and I was just passing Circuit City and Old Navy when a car made an unexpected left hand turn from oncoming traffic toward the Southland Mall entrance and in front of me. I slammed on my brakes and laid on the horn, but still ended up crashing into the right rear bumper. The good old lumina performed admirably and has barely a dent, while the other car was losing its bumper.

What was a little bit crazy was that when I got out, the first thing that the girl that turned in front of me asked after if I was okay was how old I was. Curious. She was from Indiana said another curious thing having to do with this. There was some preexisting damage on the back of her car, and she said, "This happens every time I come to Michigan." She tried to tell this to the police officer that came to investigate the crash and it ended up sounding more like, "She didn't do all this to me." The officer then asked what had happened and of course he knew right away that she was at fault. She was apparently on her way to Circuit City to buy a cell phone charger, and the officer ended up letting her to get it because: the car wasn't hers, she was staying with people in Indiana who were on vacation in Europe or something, teh car wouldn't start after she had parked it near the store.

The officer was extremely polite and professional and directed me to rest in my car and gave me all of the information necessary to claim the accident on insurance. When I left he was trying to help the girl start her car or get ahold of the real owners.

I was working that day for my mom's boss doing punching and binding and sorting of old tax returns. It is not very exciting, but the plan is to put all of the money toward paying down debt, which is much needed, and I am happy to be a help to my mom as they just lost a co-worker there.

My Dad's Retirement

At long last my dad has retired from the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety. After 25 years on the force he spent his last week getting 72 hours of overtime and visiting most of the stations serving Kalamazoo.

His last day they had a ceremony for him at headquarters and he had cake at Station 7. Before Jim and I got there the Griffioen's and Justin's visited the station. Later we looked around the station and my mom took me aside to tell me about the "surprise" ceremony and then Jim and I ran to headquarters to try to get there before my dad in the fire engine. We ended up driving right past him and I hid by pulling down the sun visor and sitting up really high. Apparently I didn't need to because when we talked later he had no idea that we had passed him-- although I guess that means that it worked.

They had the ladder trucks form an arch and a large number of fire engines and police cars. We joked that for the time that the ceremony was going on Kalamazoo was left unprotected.

My dad wanted to end his last regular duty day with a fully involved house fire, but his shift Lieutenant gave him a direct order to not enter any building that was on fire. Instead he worked a grass fire, but that was even mostly put out by the time he got there.

He will still be working a few overtime days before he is really finished, but I think that it is just beginning to sink in that he is pretty much done. His plans are to work around the house and at his mom and sister's houses in Missouri and then to get a part time job doing something else, though he doesn't quite know what at this point. My parents would love to have him have a job where he could work more during the winter when my mom is busy with taxes and then have summers off to vacation with her.

Traverse City

I am sitting up in Traverse City right now-- or TC as someone likes to call it. I'm Horizon Books, this really sweet bookstore that has free wi-fi in it and also a nice cafe and discount section. I know-- it sounds like Barnes and Noble, but really its a lot cooler and they sometimes have live music-- though never when I've been here. They also have a fireplace where locals like to play chess or cards and such.

I'm working on what I am doing for my reading for Sena and Seth's wedding, but I needed a brain break sincde I'm exhausted. Jim and I have come here several other times, but this time we made one of our $1 bets for who would be ready to go first. He had to be sitting in the car with it idling when I got there. Today when I arrived it was 6:20 am and he was still in the shower. Ha-- I've also won $1 for Eric Bana's nationality-- he's Australian. Several more bets are out there unresolved, and Jim is vowing a rematch tomorrow for this bet.

Tomorrow we are driving to Ann Arbor because Sena is going to be briefly in town and we are going to just have time for breakfast or brunch and for me to show her myself in the dress for her wedding and then turn around for Todd and Jennifer's wedding in Kalamazoo. So once again we need to be on the road at 7 am (this time in our wedding clothes), but this time he'll likely be in the car at 5:30 or something. Oh well, even if he is, I'll still break even on this series of bets, and still have a chauffer to TC and to Ann Arbor.

After we get back and have Todd and Jen's wedding we've got the possibility of dinner with Jim's dad who will be visiting from Ohio and Jim's nephew Joey. I'm geeked to finally meet Joey, who is really close with Jim, and it might be nice because apparently his dad isn't the most talkative of guys. I'm sure if we do have dinner with them then I'll hear some lovely Jim stories. His mom didn't tell me too much, but I think she was afraid she'd scare me off and the possibility of grandkids. After that we need to go running. We have been exercising, but it has only been sporadically and we have been including kayaking on my lake and working outside in the sun on John's house for 4 or 5 hour spurts. We are trying to be more faithful in the actual running on the track. We are using the system where you run for a minute and a half and then walk for 2. It seems to be very effective, and soon we will move up to running 2 min. at a time. I'm excited because I was running up to a mile and a half regularly, but then I got my job and lost my motivation and I was really missing the feeling of physical fitness and the qaulity of sleep afterwards.

Oh well, enough to think about for today alone. We are going to have a picnic and I think Jim'll want a nap because he is battling fierce allergies. Thank goodness there are beautiful parks here and plentiful parking. The next time we'll come will likely be during Cherry Festival, so the parking situation may change a little bit.

Restaurant Recommendations:
Scalawags -- All I have to say is that I tried their whitefish sandwich and loved it and for those of you who know me, you know that that is saying a lot for a piece of fish. The decor is great as well. All of the lights are made out of little minnow buckets.

Noth Peak Brewing Company The building used to be a candy factory!!! That is enough of a draw for me, but also the food is stellar. I had the white cheddar ale soup and they use these yummy garlic mustard pretzel bits for croutons on top of it. I would say that it is in close competition for the best soup I have ever had.

Mmmm- my mouth is watering just thinking about it, so I need to stop because we are planning on grilling hot dogs. Still yummy, but in a food town, for 2 foodies its not quite the same.

The Real Jim

When Jim first began coming to small group we had this joking email challenge to write who the "real" Jim is, since we didn't really know what his job was and people were speculating that it was all a ruse and he really was a spy or something like that, which was also what people theorized in the emails that were sent around.

Oh, how wrong we all were. I feel fortunate to know the REAL Jim. The guy who saw that my headlight was burned out and bought and put a new one on my car without even being asked. The guy who stands in his doorway every night after we say goodbye and watches while a get in my car and get underway to make sure that I am safe. The one that was so excited after we had lunch with his mother that she liked me and that I could understand her that he skipped. The one that really doesn't want to spend a 90 degree Staurday working on painting John's house, but does anyways because he made a committment to do it. The one that sends me random "Black Hawk Down" themed text messages. The one that loves how the lotion I use smells and saw that I was running out and went and asked one of the Bath and Body works employees for help with buying me lotion. The guy that held up to his committment to not date until after Discovery, but then changed that as soon as possible once it was over. The guy that talked about me to several of the Portage Sears employees so much that when we stopped in to get paint for John's house they knew right away who I was. The guy that spent Father's Day here at my house with my family and also went up in the the ladder truck with my father (where the pic is from-- 100 feet above Oakland and Howard)

I'm glad that we were wrong. It also makes me wonder who everyone else is. I hope that I have the chance to get to know the REAL you. Probably not in quite the same way as I know him or else I'd be cheating on Jim, but to not just know the public face that you put on to show during small group, or church or at work, but the real and faulted, but complete picture of who God made you to be, and where you are in the process of being transformed into a more Christ-like person. It is so easy to live as Public Relations Carrie, and I am sure that I have not been the REAL me with you guys always and I am sorry for that. I look forward to meeting you.