My Day With Aenne

Aenne made a trip to Grand Rapids to visit her boyfriend, Simon. It was a short trip so she wasn't able to make it to Durand, so on a day when Simon was in school I went to visit her. She called the night before to ask if I was still coming because of the roads and I didn't know what she meant as the roads were fine here. But the next morning I found out why she called and asked because as I got close to Grand Rapids, the roads were horrible. I was a nervous wreck and I was so glad that I took the suburban and not my car. Come to find out there were 200 schools closed in the area, but not Simon's. After I picked her up we loaded my GPS to get us to Meijer Gardens, which most of it is outside at the better times of the year. But what we did get to see was beautiful and they had lilacs, hyacinths, daffodils and tulips in bloom. And since it was so cold and the roads so bad, it made me long for spring time. All the plant life was wonderful and Aenne and I were fascinated by the little birds. It doesn't take much to get us excited. :-) After the gardens we headed off to lunch and a big mall area as I was sure we could find something to do around there. But on the way we were going through downtown and I had read about an art gallery there so we changed the GPS and headed to the gallery. Well, we found it and a lot of it was pretty cool, but the prices weren't even anything we could fathom. Everybody that worked there were real nice though. So, now back on the roads, the slippery icy roads and even though the sun had been shining on them, they were still a mess and there were still all kinds of cars in the ditch and accidents. But we did make it to the mall area and Aenne chose the Olive Garden to eat at as she had never been there before. And it was such a good choice. We had a great lunch and then we head over to the mall. We didn't shop much but what we did do is go to the movies. I actually had a girl with me and I could go to a chick flick. We went to see "Fool's Gold" and I really enjoyed it. I was so happy that Aenne went with me. I wish she was still here because there is another chick flick I want to go to and like me, Stacy does prefer to watch them at home. After the movie it was off to Wall Mart to find something from America for Hanna . Hanna is Tino and Aenne's younger sister who I think she is 10 now. Well, Aenne said she is really getting into cooking shows and wanting to cook so I got her a cook book with lots of pictures and some measuring utensils. I would love to be able to watch her cook with all of this. I then took Aenne home and made the trip back to Durand. The roads were a lot better but I still had to very cautious. It was a great day and I am looking forward to her return visit this summer when she is able to spend some time in Durand. And as promised Aenne, we will play Cranium. All we have to do is convince my Mom to come up and play with us. :-)