July Happenings

We've been slacking on our blogging lately. We're well into August now, but there are still memorable activities to report on from July. Alas. Here's what we did in July besides our multiple birthday celebrations and a few other things that we already posted about: 


A couple of Hillsdale trips

As Brandon covered in a previous post, we took our niece and nephew climbing and then returned them home to Hillsdale. Brandon was also down in Hillsdale another time to spend more time with family and get in some golfing with his dad at Binder Park Golf Course. 

Family time in Hillsdale

A few TechSmith visits

Brandon visited TechSmith a few times to discuss future work options and to grab lunch with some co-workers. He enjoyed catching up with friends and eating his Lansing favorites of El Oasis, Backyard BBQ, and Pancheros. 


Hubbard Lake cabin weekend

Some friends of ours have a family cabin up north on Hubbard Lake that they kindly invite our friend group to each year for a long weekend. We always have a great time hanging out with friends, eating too much, boating, and tubing. A highlight of this year was the addition of a hammock post at the cabin that allowed five hammocks to be set up at once rather than the usual two. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time lazing around and chatting in the hammocks. 

Hammock time

Sunset cruise on the pontoon

Brandon looking contemplative

Attempting to brew a coffee blonde

We wanted to brew another beer with Nate in Lansing and thought a coffee blonde would be a great summer brew. Unfortunately, we may have been a bit too ambitious in our undertaking. We switched from indoor brewing on a stove with a 3 gallon boil to outdoor brewing on a propane burner with a full 6 gallon boil. At the same time we decided to try our first all grain recipe. An all grain recipe requires you to extract all the fermentable sugars from just grain rather than adding malt or extra sugars. We probably introduced too many new elements to our brewing process, because our gravity was way off target at the end of brewing (meaning we didn't extract much sugar). If the beer even turns out, it's going to be very low in alcohol. Despite this disappointment, it was nice to hangout with Nate and some TechSmith people during brewing. Bill and Rhonda are a really cool couple that we were able to catch up with some more. And, it was a treat to see Anton, who we visited in Germany, and share some beers with him. We also had Nate's amazing, homemade, smoked chicken tacos to enjoy throughout the evening. 

The new brewing set up

Meeting up with Lansing friends 

I already mentioned that we were able to hang out with Nate and some fun TechSmith people. I also got to have lunch with my good friend Christie. It's always good to catch up on life in person, since neither of us are telephone people. 

While hanging out with Nate we had my favorite beer: Creme Brulee Stout from Southern Tier

Visiting family at VanBuren State Park 

My cousin Becky lives in Iowa, but she took a Michigan vacation in July. We were able to go out to VanBuren State Park where she was camping with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. It was great to see her and her kids and catch up on life for a few hours. 


More family time

Since we were back in Grand Rapids for most of July we were able to see my parents a little more often. We dropped in often to collect our mail, and we always enjoy it when we have a good Sunday dinner there. One Sunday we had a fun time disc golfing in the park with my parents, my brother, and the family dog. 

Disc golfing at Cascade Park

More friend time

As we are still homeless, we relied on the graciousness of friends to take us into their homes. In July, we spent almost two weeks with the Horos' and a week with the Schut's. Since we were living with them, we got to hang out more often and share dinner together whenever we were all around. We also became pseudo-pet sitters to our friends' pets: Asic the goldendoodle, Leila the Aussie, and Abu the cat. It's been a great time of living in community, and I'm sure there will be more of it to come, since we're still working on solidifying our future plans and finding a place to live. 

Abu just being a cat

The Founders decision-making visit

Speaking of future plans, we worked on figuring those out in July. Our best life decisions, like deciding how to do our wedding and how to take a sabbatical, took place at Founders. So, it seemed logical to look to the wisdom of Founders when figuring out our post-sabbatical plans/life. Stay tuned for another post on how that went. 


Learning how to play the ukulele

I now have a ukulele! Brandon surprised me with letting me pick one out for my birthday. It took some research and a lot of sitting in music shops and trying out ukulele after ukulele, but I finally decided on one. It's a soprano ukulele, but it has a longer neck like a concert ukulele which allows more space for the fingers on the strings; pretty unique, and I like it. Brandon and I have been playing around with it and getting better little by little. 

Working on my ukulele skills

Climbing, climbing, climbing at Inside Moves 

We've been busy climbing two to three times a week at our local climbing gym, Inside Moves. With our year pass, we can go as much as we'd like, so why not take advantage of it? Plus, we're planning on doing another trip to Red River Gorge, Kentucky at the end of September, which it will be good to have extra training and endurance for. 


I think that pretty much covers July. It went by super quickly, especially since I was sick with a pretty bad cold virus for at least two weeks. August is well upon us, and we'll have more to say about that later.