So I just spent the last week up in my hometown of Alpena, MI with my mom's entire side of the family (minus a few). Sixteen people. Twelve in one house. Yeah, as you can see it was pretty packed. I just can't even believe that we all made it work without any big drama! Crazy right? So the first day my mom, Uncle John, and I spent the night in Frankenmuth, MI, a cute little German town an hour or so north of Detroit. While we were there we went to a cute little shopping center home of Season 7 of Cupcake War Winner's: Sugar High. It was pretty cute and they had AMAZING cupcakes. For those of you who don't know, cake is one of my favoriteeeee foods (or sweets really ;) ). They also had an ENTIRE store of all Tervis Tumblers (I guess those are common but I had never seen one) so I picked up a Duke tumbler for Madison! We also stopped by Bronner's Christmasland the biggest Christmas store in the entire country! It was crazy. We went on the 23rd so it was super packed since it was the two days before Christmas. As some of you know, Madison and I have started collecting pieces of the Grinch land for our apartment and so I got to see the whole set up of Whoville and buy some pieces that are not available anywhere else. Here are some pictures from Bronner's and Frankenmuth:
That same day we went to a lighthouse in Harrisville and saw a beautiful lighthouse (one of my favorite things). It was really different seeing one in the snow but it was breathtaking. Near the lighthouse was a little school house that was set up just as it would have been back in the day. That was a really cool experience that I was not planning on having so it was a bonus for sure!
Next we spent most of the other days hanging out Ristow style which means playing lots of card games and dominoes as well as eating lots of ice cream and playing Donkey Kong (which we finally upgraded to the Wii thanks to Reegan). I got to go and visit the bookstore where I had my first signing and they still had everything up and displayed in the local authors section which was super cool for me. On Christmas Eve we went to the candle light service at my Grandma's church. Which was really neat but we sang probably ten verses of Oh Holy Night (I didn't know that many existed). Afterwards we went to leave and my Aunt's car didn't start so while it was getting jumped I taught my grandma how to wobble in the parking lot while it snowed. Awesome. Later I got to decorate sugar cookies with some of my cousins which was also fun but we definitely had WAY to many cookies in that household. Probably three quarters of them didn't get eaten by the time we all left. Also Latoya and I tried making a baby snowman out of the pathetic snow that had landed, but it still was a white Christmas in our minds! I got to go and have a lunch date with my oldest girl friend at Mandarin Garden a local Chinese restaurant that has been our favorite lunch date location since two thousand and eight. Then we went to see This Is 40 which my whole family hated, but I actually loved it! It really portrayed the age time and the kids are so dang cute. And if you've seen knocked up, Jodi returns who was one of my favorite characters from that movie and made this movie super hilarious also. That night my for real oldest friend Cam came over to play dominoes and catch up which was awesome since I didn't get to see him when I was in Michigan in July. The next morning we headed back to Detroit and flew back this morning! So crazy. Of course we ran into delays but that was alright we made it home and that is what matters.
It was such a nice Christmas spent with my whole family in one of my favorite spots in the whole world. The memories in that house all come rushing back when everyone is there, some good some bad, but it definitely made me appreciate it more. It was the first Christmas I have spent up there since we moved which means that my last Christmas there was in 1998! So fourteen years! So insane. Well thats all for now! Can't wait to share more adventures soon!
Xoxo,
Olivia :)
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