August Events

August went by quickly as all the summer months do. For half of the month we visited our friend Kirk in Florida, which we have several posts about. We spent another full week in the Quad Cities along with a quick visit to the Iowa State Fair. I guess it's good that August is a long month with 31 days, because somehow we fit the following in as well. 


Visiting grandparents

It had been too long since we'd seen my grandparents in Kalamazoo, so we made a trip down there to see them. It was nice to catch up while sitting on the deck and then over lunch. 
When we visited the Quad Cities we were able to see both of Brandon's grandmas and catch up a bit as well. 


A stay at the Blanski's 

We were able to house-sit the Blanski's house for a few days and water their plants while they were away. Really they were just being nice to us, since we're still homeless and need places to stay. It was great to be back in the neighborhood, and I must say that Alex's kitchen set-up is very well thought-out and perfect for guest use. But, we really missed hanging out with our friends while staying at their house. It wasn't the same without Alex, Tabitha, and two little girls. 



Continuing to climb, climb, climb

We've continued our climbing training in anticipation of a trip to the Red River Gorge in September. We even found a great deal at a Florida climbing gym and kept up our training during our two weeks there. I'm sure our normal climbing partners in Grand Rapids will be happy to have us back though. Honestly, not being able to climb with them consistently throughout the year has been one of the toughest things about being nomadic. 


Colin visits Brandon in Grand Rapids 

Brandon got an unexpected call from a Chicago friend who was driving through Grand Rapids on his way up north. They were able to meet up for a couple hours and catch up on life, which was a welcome surprise. 


A wedding dress search 

My mom, sister, and I went on a quest for a bridal gown for my sister's upcoming wedding in December. We discovered that apparently looking for a bridal gown in August for a December wedding is nearly too late due to ordering, alterations, etc. Who knew? Not me. Brandon and I did our wedding in a rather non-traditional fashion. No worries. My sister found her dress and will look beautiful as always. 



The babies keep getting older

Our friends babies just keep getting older. I had to miss out (bridal dress shopping), but Brandon was able to attend August's 1st birthday party, eat delicious birthday donuts, and hang out with friends. 


Meeting up with friends over food

The sushi place in Holland knows our friend Zuri by her voice when she calls for take-out. She's the person to have sushi with. It was wonderful to meet up with her and catch up on life. 
That same day we were able to spend time with our friend Jack over Chinese food. He always speaks such encouragement and wisdom into our lives, and it's always fun to hear what he's doing in retirement. 
I also got to see my friend Kendra on her lunch break and finally hear about her May honeymoon. 


Hitting up some Holland favorites

We made it to the beach a couple times, and Lake Michigan never fails to impress. It's so beautiful. We're definitely going to miss living as close as we were. We also had to stop at Taco Fiesta and enjoy their al pastor tacos. These al pastor tacos are seriously the best...we would know. Unfortunately, also in August, an attempt on our part to try to replicate the al pastor meat and flavors failed miserably...we'll keep trying. 

Enjoying the lake at Saugatuck Dunes

Appreciating Lake Michigan

Taco Fiesta's al pastor tacos

Canadian Lakes with the Barnetts 

The Barnetts rented a cottage on Canadian Lakes and invited anyone in our friend group to come out for a couple days. Being homeless, we happily obliged. We had a great time enjoying the lake, drinking wine, spending time around the fire, watching Olympics, and just hanging out with great friends. 

Three men and a baby

5 year physical therapy class reunion

It's been five years since I survived and graduated from PT school. It was fun to meet up with some former classmates at a park and hear what they're doing now. We should probably meet up more often then every 5 years. 


Quad City visit 

We spent about a week of August in the Quad Cities. Besides spending time with family and going to the Iowa State Fair, we were able to catch up with friends and eat quintissential QC food. We met Auzzie and Kristy and their boys for time in the park and some Whitey's shakes. We had a good time grabbing Hungry Hobo's subs and Whitey's with Mike and Anna and bringing it back to their place to watch some Olympics. We tried to go to Habanero's with Christian and Liz, but it's closed on Mondays, so we tried out La Rancherita #2 which turned out to be a delicious decision. And, we still got our Habanero's fix in with Matt and Rose. 


As aforementioned, for more on the Iowa State Fair and visiting our friend Kirk in Florida you can check out some other blog posts. And, that was August! 

Florida Tacos and Beer

As you probably all know by now, no trip is ever complete for us unless we've checked out the local taco and beer scene. Below are some of the highlights of our taco and beer adventures in Florida.

Tacos and Beer!!!!

3 Daughters Brewing

After our first day out climbing, Katie and I wanted to hit up one of the many breweries near the climbing gym in St Petersburg. We decided on 3 Daughters quite simply because it was the only one open. The rest in the area didn't open for another hour. But despite not picking the place based on what we heard about the beer, we were not disappointed. 

Katie and I enjoying a refreshing beer together in the brewhouse.

We were able to start our visit with a flight of 4 of their beers plus a smaller sample of a couple others. The taproom was a little on the small side, but it was air-conditioned. So we were just happy to get a break from the heat. The barkeep was also super nice. I got a chance to talk with her a bit while Katie took a potential job-related call out in the car. (Don't worry we'll be making a job update post here soon) Once Katie returned, we determined our favorite beer was their coffee blonde, which as it turns out was what we were attempting to make with our friend Nate at the end of July.

The flight that helped us determine our favorite 3 Daughters beer

After our flight we decided to split a pint of that coffee blonde. The barkeep was nice enough to pour two half glasses without asking, which meant we probably got a little more than a normal pint. Not a bad way to go at all. She also told us we should go into the brew house where they had a bunch of games we could play with views of the brewing equipment in action. So we did just that and were very impressed with the wide variety of things to do. We played several of the games as we finished off our pint. It was a great visit. I would definitely go back again.

The brew house

Canning line in action

Shuffleboard tables and darts

All the tables had different games printed right on them

Katie playing the hook and ringtoss game.
There's a pretty nice stage behind her too. I bet this place would be great to see a show at!

Katie playing checkers with me.

I just looked up what their name came from and on their "about" page of their website it says "How many beers does it take to put three daughters through college? The owners don’t know the answer, but certainly hope to find out." I just thought that was pretty funny and worth sharing.


Darwin Brewing Co.

We wanted to check out a brewery near-ish where Kirk lived so that we could easily drag him along. We picked Darwin Brewing because it had good reviews. We did our usual tasting flight. Nothing was bad, but we weren't impressed enough to splurge for a pint of anything we tried. It was still a fun experience to go grab something with Kirk

Darwin's coaster

Our flight

Random Taco Truck

Kirk didn't have a lot of positive things to say about any Florida Mexican restaurants, but he also hadn't been that adventurous in what he tried. He pointed out a taco truck that he had never been to a few miles from his house. We pretty much drove by every day while we were oot and aboot, so it was calling our name. I tried to look up its name, but it wasn't listed anywhere even though its always on the same street corner every day. For some this may be a deterrent, but for Katie and I that spells out potential authentic taco excellence!  

For some reason we didn't get around to trying it until the last couple days of our visit. And of course those last couple days had to be the days a tropical storm/potential hurricane was hitting Florida. Well we were determined to try it out despite the weather. So we waited for a lull in tumultuous rain and set out in the Kirk's truck in case the streets were flooded. When we arrived it was still raining a bit, so we even had to order under an umbrella. 

A determined taco enthusiast

I was still all smiles though... totally worth waiting in the rain.

We ordered 6 different kinds of tacos and took them back to Kirk's place to eat. Man were they good. Their tortillas were super fresh and delicious. All the different styles were great, but the al pastor was our favorite. It may even rival our favorite al pastor tacos in Holland. Our only complaint was they were a little skimpy on their fillings. But each taco was only $1.50, so its hard to complain too much. I would highly recommend trying them out.

Our very authentic tacos.

Casita Taqueria

We stopped by a Trader Joe's after climbing one afternoon and saw a sign that's hard to ignore: "BEER...TACOS". We of course had just bought some perishables and couldn't risk them going bad. So we were responsible and tabled the visit. But we made a mental note of the place and hoped we'd be seeing it again. Well luckily another opportunity arose. We wanted to get in one more visit to the climbing gym in St. Pete on our last full day in town, but the Skyway bridge had been closed since the day before due to high winds of the Tropical Storm. We were a little annoyed with this because by Friday the winds really weren't that bad at all, but the bridge did eventually open up for the evening. So we made Kirk go with us with the hopes we could get him to climb and then grab dinner afterwards. We were unsuccessful in getting him to climb, but we were very successful in finding another delicious taco joint in town. That place was Casita Taqueria.

The sign that drew us in

Casita Taqueria actually had two locations. So we went to the one closer to the climbing gym, not the one we saw by Trader Joes. It's always a good sign when you walk into a place and there enough variety of tacos that sound good where our order ends up being "one of every taco please". We did get a beer as well. We tried a local IPA called Milo's IPA from St Pete Brewing Company. It paired quite well with our tacos.

Kirk having a near death experience

Our taco platter with 9 different kinds of tacos

The tacos were quite delicious. Our favorite was surprisingly the barbacoa taco. We don't usually love that style of taco because it tends to be too greasy. But theirs was perfect. The variety of ingredients and styles felt very similar to one of our favorite Michigan spots: Imperial, which we last went to back in May. That means though that they also were a little on the pricey side. But given that this was our last night in town, Kirk treated us to dinner. So who was really counting :) ... Thanks Kirk for a delicious end to our time in Florida!

31st Birthday Blind Date

As per what seems to be our tradition, Katie took me on a blind date for my 31st birthday. As you will be able to tell from the picture below, the main theme of the day was... TACOS! It was quite the fun day in Lansing.

 The first surprise... Pablo's Panaderia
I apparently forgot how to smile with a blindfold on. I promise I'm actually excited.

Breakfast tacos!

The second surprise... Mini Golf!

And not just any mini golf, real grass mini golf.

Trying to save par

Katie making a comeback

The third surprise... a gift appropriate for my old age and an awesome card made by Katie

The fourth surprise...

...more tacos! This time from a sketchy Hispanic grocery store

Fifth surprise... taco truck tacos

I was so full tacos I only ordered two, but they were delicious.

And then after relaxing and letting our stomachs settle during the afternoon, the last surprise was Katie made me dessert tacos for dinner.
Sugar and cinnamon shells filled with cream cheese and berries. One of them had chocolate hazelnut spread. One had cookie butter spread. And the third had extra sugar and cinnamon. 

Double Blind Birthday Date

Our love of blind dates (well, technically blind-folded dates) is no secret. So, we were happily surprised to hear that my sister had cleverly planned a double blind date to celebrate both of our birthdays. Yes, both Brandon and I have birthdays in July. July is definitely a superb month for birthdays. 

The first destination for the blind date was to be revealed via mail, so we headed to my parents house to pick up our mail and see what was in store for us. After sorting through several envelopes we found a gift card to Marie Catrib's for dinner that night. Hurrah! Marie Catrib's is my favorite restaurant in the entire world. And, Brandon, while not giving it "entire world" status appreciates their delicious fare as well (aka they have tacos for him). 

Holding our Marie Catrib's gift card with our eyes closed

We were instructed that we had to be done with dinner at Marie Catrib's by 7:15 pm and would be given instructions via text on what our after dinner entertainment would be. 

We arrived plenty early to Marie Catrib's to avoid the dinner rush and make sure we met our 7:15 pm deadline. While we waited for our food, we played around with the table decorations to make different shapes. 

Brandon built a rocket ship

My parents had taken us to Marie Catrib's the week before to celebrate our birthdays together. I feel pretty spoiled to have gotten to go there twice already in July. There are so many great dishes on the menu that it wasn't hard to find something different from the last time. As always the food was spectacularly delicious. 

Me with my giant "We Got the Beet" sandwich

Brandon with his Ancho Lentil Tacos

Since we were celebrating birthdays and had a gift card we splurged. Brandon also got an order of the seasoned potatoes, which are so amazing and addicting that he has renamed them "crack potatoes". He saved most of the potatoes to nibble on throughout the next couple days, because we also decided to split the homemade chocolate pudding. The chocolate pudding is pure, thick, rich, chocolate-y deliciousness decadently topped with real whipped cream. So good. 

Best chocolate pudding ever

While finishing up our meal we received a text from my sister saying that the next stop on our birthday blind date was a Grand Rapids Football Club game. She also texted us tickets to get into the game. We had been to their game the week before and had a lot of fun, so it was a great surprise to be able to go to another one this week. 

Dinner had gone smoothly and quickly, so we had some time to kill. The weather was cool, so we took a nice, after-dinner walk around the neighborhood. When it was time for the game to start we made our way to Houseman field to see GRFC play Lansing United. 

The game was a lot of fun to watch and pretty dramatic. Both teams got a red card in the 12th minute, so the rest of the game was 10 on 10. GRFC ended up winning 3:1. The third goal was dramatically scored during stoppage time right before the official end of the game. GRFC has an enthusiastic fan base making the game even more exciting to watch. 

GRFC vs. Lansing United

Watching the game and enjoying our birthday blind date. 

And that was the end of our double blind birthday blind date. Many thanks to my sister for planning an awesome evening for us. It was also a much needed distraction for me, since I'd come down with a nasty, week-long, upper respiratory virus. Yes, I try to eat well and exercise and take care of my body. Yes, it's the middle of summer. Yes, I've been incredibly irritated to be sick. This blind date evening was a bright spot in a week of sickness. 

29th Birthday Blind Date

I love my birthday and look forward to it every year. How could I not? Brandon always helps make birthdays so special. My 29th birthday was on Friday, and Brandon took me on an awesome blind date to celebrate. 

I started out in the car blindfolded with a homemade birthday card from Brandon

As it turned out, our first stop was The Ledges at Grand Ledge. The Ledges is the only place to climb outdoors in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. I had never been to The Ledges and had been wanting to check it out, so I was very excited that Brandon planned this stop. 

On the edge of the ledge

Of course the climbing at The Ledges isn't on par with that in Red River Gorge, Kentucky. But, despite most of the routes being only 30 feet high or less, there are some good, challenging routes. And, it was nice to be outside, active, and doing something we both love on such a beautiful day in July.  

Ready for the first climb

Taking a rest on a ledge halfway up the route

Almost to the top of the route

My fabulous, adventurous, blind date planning husband preparing for the climb

This route was more difficult than the first couple we did, but Brandon conquered it with impressive skill

I took a nice long rest on the ledge halfway up the route before continuing on

My arms were screaming by the time I reached the top 

The next surprise was a late lunch at El Oasis taco truck in Lansing. Brandon and I enjoyed hot, freshly prepared tacos, and the al pastor were definitely the best. 

Blindfolded with no idea what deliciousness lies behind me

Tacos are perfect post-climbing food

An adventure involving climbing and tacos would have been a sufficient birthday blind date, but Brandon had even more planned for the day. Our next stop was Lansing Brewing Company. Neither of us had been to the brewery, so it was high time to check it out. We sampled a flight and our favorite beer was their classic Amber Cream Ale. 

Drinking the Amber Cream Ale at Lansing Brewing Company 

And, it still wasn't over. The final surprise was a trip to an instrument shop. I also just realized that the place is called Elderly Instruments...I can only hope that wasn't intentional on Brandon's part. Regardless, we went there to look for a ukulele for me, which was super exciting. I tried learning how to play the banjo at the beginning our sabbatical, but I found the fingering to be difficult and didn't get very far. When we visited our friend Becky in California we were exposed to her marvelous ukulele skills, and I found the ukulele strings to be much easier to handle. I have been wanting a ukulele to play around with ever since. 

The instruments may be elderly, but not me. Plus, Brandon will always be more elderly than me. 

There were so many fancy ukuleles to play around with. We didn't buy anything at that moment. We have more researching to do. Hopefully I'll have one in my hands by the end of July. 

The instrument shop was the official end to the birthday blind date, but we still did some fun evening activities. The Grand Rapids Football Club had a match against Ann Arbor that we went to with Adam, Rachel, Alex, Tabitha, Amanda, and Josh. It was really fun to all hang out, and GRFC ended up winning 3:1. Adam, Rachel, Brandon, and I left a bit early to make it Furniture City Creamery before it closed. It seems silly to me for an ice cream place to only be open til 10 pm in the summer, especially since it's a popular place. Their homemade, eclectic flavors are delicious, so it was worth it to make it there on time. 

Rachel, me, and Adam with our ice cream

That was my 29th birthday! It was a truly spectacular day, and the big 3-0 next near will have to be pretty amazing to top it.