Easter Vacation

For the first time since we were both in our undergraduate days at GVSU, my husband and I shared some spring break vacation time! This doesn't usually happen because I teach college and he teaches high school. However, this year, I am teaching at a semi-religious college (it gets funding from Lutheran regional churches), so in addition to my spring break, I got an Easter Break. :) For Easter, I got Thursday and Friday off, and since I don't work Wednesdays as well, that meant that Paul only had TWO days to himself for vacation instead of the entire week. We decided that since this rarity might not occur again for a long time, we were going to make the best of it. Immediately, we thought about going Home to Michigan for our entire time. Then we started thinking about how hectic that always is and how we would not be very relaxed. Then we thought about going to the Wisconsin Dells or something special for some of that time. However, then we had to think of someone to watch our dog, and Rick was leaving for Michigan.

Eventually, we came up with a great compromise and genius plan: We spent some romantic and relaxing time from Tuesday night to Thursday evening in southern Michigan, and then ended our Easter break with time with family and friends. We found the perfect place to stay for our adventure: a cozy cabin in Niles, Michigan. Dogs were allowed and it had a lot of acres of woods, AND it was close to a whole bunch of wineries. It was the most amazing mini-vacation with my husband EVER! The cabin is a perfect balance of "roughing it" and "comfort". We loved how the only way to heat the cabin was with a wood stove. I love the smell of wood stoves, and combine that with: snuggling on a couch, in front of the stove, with our dog at our feet and a glass of wine in our hands after going for a long walk in the woods...sigh...I want to go back. I could live like that and be happy forever. We went to plenty of wineries and learned a lot about what types of wines we prefer, which is really helpful.

We made it up to Paul's parents' home in time for dinner on Thursday. We then soaked in their hot tub and just relaxed some more. Friday was a bit more hectic: Paul went fishing in the morning with his buddy Greg, we hung out with Julie during the day, and then visited our friends Rusty and Staci and their two kids at night. There was a storm at night, so we spent some time watching a movie with his parents and watching our dog (who is afraid of storms) go crazy.  On Saturday, we had Easter family time with Paul's family. We went as a family to the butterfly exhibit at Frederick Meijer Gardens and then had kabobs for dinner. After his siblings left, we followed that up with some more hot tub relaxing. :)  On Sunday, Paul and I went to Friendship CRC like we used to, and it was so great enjoying a church service again (something that doesn't happen here in Milwaukee). Then we headed on to see my family....LOTS of my family. :)  It was wonderful seeing my cousins and parents and siblings and EVERYONE again! I didn't want to leave. We ate good food and played fun games and just caught up on lost time. Unfortunately, we still had to leave for Milwaukee and so we headed off for the long and annoying journey back to our Milwaukee house. 

This was one of the best Easters that I can remember. I love that we got to relax and have some time to ourselves as well as see family and friends. It was such a great balance. Also, by staying in Niles, Michigan for a few nights, it made the journey Home way shorter. It took only 3 hours to get there from Milwaukee, and then only 1.5 hours to get from Niles to Byron Center. In the future, I hope we have similar vacation times and that we can do that again. I hope everyone else had great Easter breaks! :)