On the way up we decided to eat dinner at a sit-down restaurant, even though we had packed sandwiches - and what popped up? A PERKINS! When I was in Key Club we used to eat there at every District Board meeting. At one meeting there was a creepy guy sitting with a life-sized doll... and he ordered a meal for the doll. Moving on... we had a fantastic meal, their famous muffins are still as good as ever.
Over the weekend we spent a lot of time with Jeremy, Tammy, and Baby Jackson (8 months). Baby Jackson is very long - still long, not tall because he can't quite walk, but he's working on it. He must have inherited his dad's height. Jeremy and Kenton cut the hedges in the backyard while Tammy, Baby Jackson and I took a load off.
Jackson "hanging" out
We had the privilege in seeing a Clarkston, Michigan, tradition - the Fourth of July parade. It was the longest parade I've ever seen (not counting Thanksgiving ones on TV), lasting over and hour and a half. There were a ton of classic cars (being part of car manufacturing history and all), tractors, people running for political office, and fire trucks. One of the best features in the parade was a goat dressed up as a hot dog!
Hot Goat
Steve and Char have a wonderful backyard for entertaining - we hung out all day after the parade was over. Steve managed the grill and the cheeseburgers were fantastic. The best thing there was the lemon bars - best I've ever had.
"Mrs. Hargises"
"Mr. Hargises"
That evening, we went back to Jeremy and Tammy's and were able to watch as Jackson experienced fireworks for the first time!
Fireworks with Jeremy, Tammy and Jackson
On Saturday Kenton and I went to a Thai restaurant (hopefully the new one opening up in town will be fantastic and I won't have to wait for vacations to eat Thai!). Later that night, Jeff, Susan, Lucas, Steve, and Char all came over and we ate Mexican take-out (which was fantastic!) and a camp fire outside in the perfect Michigan summer weather.
From Left: Steve, Char, Lucas, Jeff, dog-Maggie, Susan, Anna, Kenton, Jeremy, Tammy
(Jackson was already asleep and Zach was with the grandparent's up North)
Before we started the drive home on Sunday, we went to IKEA because Kenton had never been to one. We found a fantastic storage unit we could put in the apartment which was reasonably priced, but wouldn't fit in the car. We figured we could order it online, but it's over 200% of the purchase price just for shipping - they must ship all the way from Sweden!
