Episode 56: July-September 2011
Highlights of the quarter:
• Boating, Balloons, Lakes, and Loons – summer fun in Michigan;
• Our friends, Stephanie and Luis, visit;
• Vacation in Cape Cod;
• Deb’s family getaway to Malta and Switzerland.
Summer is a wonderful time in Michigan, and this year was no exception. The Michigan summer usually involves long days with an average of 15 hours of sunlight and consistent temperatures through both the day and night. This combination makes for great outdoor entertaining throughout the season. We took advantage of the weather, our new house, and great friends by spending many nights outdoors. As always, summer brings with it baseball season, and this year the local minor league team, the Great Lakes Loons, provided multiple evenings of entertainment.
Although we have lived in Midland for 5 years now (hard to believe!), we have never attended the annual hot air balloon festival – a spectacle where at least 50 hot air balloons launch into the air simultaneously. The balloons spend a weekend showing off their colors and taking part in competitions that test the pilots’ ability to maneuver the balloon. We finally managed to attend this year, and joined some friends for a tailgate at the “after glow” event where the balloons simultaneous fire their burners after sunset, providing a terrific nighttime viewing. We saw the whole thing while enjoying some delicious snacks, just a few feet away from where the balloons were set up.
I had another hot air balloon experience during the quarter. One of the annual fundraisers for Big Brothers Big Sisters is a raffle where numbered golf balls are dropped from a hot air balloon onto a target, and those golf balls that land closest to the target get a prize. As a Board member, I managed to convince the organizers to let me go up in the hot air balloon, which was my very first hot air balloon ride experience. The only unfortunate thing was that for this event the balloon was tethered to the ground, and therefore, it could not rise very high. Nevertheless, it was a great experience, and I am definitely ready to graduate to a real hot air balloon ride. Convincing Neal to join me will be the challenge!
As we have during past summers, we took a few trips to beautiful northern Michigan this summer. Two of our trips were to Torch Lake, one of Michigan’s most beautiful lakes. First, we spent a weekend at Torch Lake with our friends, Rob and Sue, and their little daughter, Meilin, at their lake house. In addition to enjoying the outdoors on their property, we also had a great dinner with them at a local lake hangout. Next, we spent another weekend at Torch Lake with our friends, Ed and Michelle, and a few of their friends and family. Ed and Michelle have started a tradition of renting a house on the lake for a week in the summer, and kindly invited us to join them, and we were glad that we did. The house was really a mansion: 3 stories plus a basement, 8 bedrooms, each with their own full bathroom, 2 kitchens, multiple living spaces, and a deck that led out to the shore of the lake. We had a great time boating, swimming, toasting marshmallows, and enjoying the beautiful scenery and great company.
Our good friends, Stephanie and Luis, came to visit us this summer, all the way from their new home in Brazil. They have settled into life in Brazil very well, and we enjoyed hearing all the adventures of moving to a new country. While Steph was in town, she led a few NIA classes for her loyal students – and we loved being able to dance with her again. Stephanie and I spent a weekend at Crystal Mountain, a resort in northern Michigan, indulging in spa treatments and then spent a day at the beach in Frankfort (my favorite beach in Michigan) catching up with each other and soaking up some sun.
At the end of July, I had to take a work trip to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. With both of us having never been there, we decided to make a short vacation out of it, and Neal joined me there for a long weekend. I flew into the “Cape” on a very small 8-seater plane, which was an experience unto itself. Although I could not hear myself think over the loud hum of the engines, the flight gave me a spectacular bird’s eye view of the coastline. Neal took the alternate option – flying into Boston and renting a car for the 2-hour drive to the Cape. The Cape Cod peninsula has been a playground for many Americans, but it was probably made most famous by the Kennedys – and the area is the holiday spot of many of America’s political and corporate elite. It is easy to see why so many choose that place as their summer holiday spot. It reminded us of northern Michigan, with its beautiful coast line, quaint houses and buildings, and rugged landscape. The big difference was the amount of investment and tourism in Cape Cod as compared to northern Michigan. We spent our first night in Chatham, a quaint town with some great restaurants and cute boutiques. From there, we ventured around the peninsula. The highlight of the Cape for us was a day trip to Provincetown. Located at the tip of the peninsula, this gorgeous town is surrounded by ocean and is home to some of the best seafood in the world. While driving through the town, we came across a number of little street vendors selling freshly shucked oysters and the closest things to authentic fish and chips that I have been able to find in the U.S. Provincetown is also known for being “gay-friendly”, and it was really pleasing to see so many same-sex couples, many with children – a refreshing openness to diversity.
The final highlight of the quarter was a solo trip I made to see my immediate and extended family in Malta and Switzerland. Unfortunately, Neal was not able to join due to work commitments with a major investor event that he was leading (more on that in the next blog). So, this trip was a girls’ getaway. For me, the trip started with a week in Switzerland where I spent a few days in the office and also caught up with some of my dear friends. My friend, Vicki, and I ended a day of shopping with a few drinks and a lot of people watching at Baur au Lac, an outdoor bar attached to a luxury hotel at the tip of Lake Zurich that is frequented by a lot of travelers with a whole lot of money. I also caught up with our friends, Cecilia and Steve, and their beautiful sons, Lawrence and Elliot. Hard to believe that I once changed Lawrence’s nappies and baby sat him and now he is almost as tall as me! I also met Natalene, the new addition to Daphne, Pierre and Gatien’s family, who was born at the end of June. I spent some great one-on-one time with Daphne, who is amazing in her new role as mummy of two and is now planning a return to work. My friend, Maria, and I spent many late nights catching up on all that each other have been up to at some of her new restaurant finds around Zurich.
The next leg of the trip began when my little sister, Candace, landed in Zurich. After meeting, we spent a day exploring the city before heading back to the airport to fly to Malta to meet up with my mum and my older sister, Carol. Mum and her partner, Tony, spent a total of three months in Malta this year, and we met up with them in the last week of their trip. Our time in Malta was a week-long family reunion that coincided with the festival of the village that both of my parents were born in. The festival is religious in nature, celebrating the patron saint of the village, and spans four days and nights of celebration. All of my mum’s eight siblings and their families, bar one, live on the island and all joined us each night for the celebrations of the village. Even my grandfather, who does not spend too much time out of the house these days, joined in the festivities, reveling in the bands and dancing in the streets by day and the evening fireworks celebrations each night. The village prepares for this event all year, which was evident in the elaborate street decorations and songs that had been created just for the week (with some very creative lyrics that the locals had been familiarizing themselves with for months). The fireworks were something else – both professional and homemade displays of pyrotechnics that made my sisters and I a little nervous, but had us cheering along when we realized no matter how amateur they looked, the locals were very confident in their ability to put on a spectacular display. For me, the highlight of the festival was on the final day when the village celebrated the patron saint, Maria Bambina (the baby Virgin Mary). The most angelic voice (coming from the bell tower of the church) belted out a gorgeous rendition of Ave Maria while the statue of the Maria Bambina was walked out of the church and paraded for three hours around the village. The choir and bands followed her, with people dancing in the streets, and children and teens sitting on shoulders of people so they could see the festivities. Maria Bambina returned to the church after her tour of the village and re-entered as ceremoniously as she exited. It really was special to experience something that was such a huge part of my parents’ lives when they were growing up – it was an honor to experience the tradition with my family.
Carol, Candace, and I left Malta and headed home via Switzerland where we spent a short, but action-packed, visit with Dad and Julie. The highlight of our two days with them was a day trip to Mont Blanc where we took a series of cable cars up, stopping along the way to take photos and see the view from a slightly higher vantage point each time. That area is super cool – magical scenery and you are at the intersection of three countries (France, Switzerland, and Italy). We all had a beautiful dinner that evening at a restaurant overlooking Lake Geneva, which topped off our very short visit. From there, Carol and Candace headed off to Denmark, and I spent one more night with Maria in Zurich before heading back to the U.S.
That wrapped up a busy quarter for us, both personally and professionally. Until next time, take care!
