Aloha and Adios Michigan

This Labor Day weekend was spent with my sister, her husband, and her kids. We geocached, took some okay items from the caches, left some great ones, spent some time on the shores of a quiet lake, ate some great food, drank some good beer, and had ourselves a good ole' time.

We came home with the most beautiful tomatoes and potatoes from their garden. We plan to indulge in Michigan tomato salsa--there are quite a few varieties of tomatoes even-- for the next few weeks and hopefully a nice tomato-based vegetable soup with their tomatoes and their potatoes. It's always so nice to come home with goodies from their garden. A couple of years ago, they gave us red potatoes, and we made them into roasted potato wedges for two different meals (my mouth is watering just thinking about it.).

As if the vegetables weren't enough, we also came home with four chickens--two are whole and frozen, and the other two are halved (so there are four halves) and frozen. Apparently the Amish have cleaned and sectioned them (not the proper term but hey, I'm citified now...), and we will be roasting and eating them shortly. What looks to be a pound of Bird's bacon was tucked underneath the chicken, and that was a great surprise. For those of you unfamiliar with Bird's bacon... well, it's usually quite lean, fresh-tasting, never too salty, and made from pigs grown right here in our home state. What a wonderful surprise! Bird's is a local butcher who offers the best of all cuts of meat, for example, the leanest, most delicious cuts of sizzler steaks and then there's always the bacon.... But the food... it always causes a digression.

I remember mentioning quite a few post ago that I wanted to share with you pictures of my sister's visit here and some of the stuff we did together. That didn't happen because it seems like almost within the next day or so, I left to go up there and help take care of our mom when she was hospitalized. I still have not gone through the pictures she gave me on cd, nor have I sorted the ones I took with my own camera, but I do have these--a few different pictures of my sister and me at various locales. Hope you enjoy them. Miss you, Laura. xo

Here's a pic of my sister and me, pre-dinner and drinks. Too bad there isn't a "post-dinner and drinks" picture....
And here's one taken a month or so before at the local touristy river walk/ ice cream joint:

And even ANOTHER picture taken a month or so before the river walk...or was it the day before?:

p.s. How bad do I need Botox on my angry lines?!