I'm home!

Life is back to normal. My cousin's graduation party was a ton of fun and the cookies I brought were a hit! I made peanut butter cookies with a chocolate topping and cranberry oatmeal cookies with a white chocolate topping. Yum! I'll be sharing the recipes soon.

Mackinac Island was a ton of fun as always. I can't believe how fast the trip went. We rode bikes, looked at historical landmarks, people watched from our balcony, ate at fancy restaurants, took a carriage ride and bought a lot of fudge. And I took over 500 photos... Which means I've got a lot of sorting and editing to do. I'll be sharing some of those soon!

When I got home from Mackinac Nathan's brother and his girlfriend were already here visiting from Sweden. They will be in the US for a couple weeks but they were with us for only a few days. They brought us some awesome vintage Swedish comics and a bunch of candy! Yum.

They spent most of their time exploring the city while Nathan and I stayed in. We had a lot of laundry and grocery shopping to do. Plus I was exhausted from my trip.

So this week I've got some recipes and vacation photos to share. My crochet flags are coming along nicely and I have my fingers crossed that they will be finished by Wednesday for the 4th...!

Happy Monday!

let's go boating

I spent the weekend at my parent's house in the suburbs. On Saturday I had a dentist appointment and later that night we had a party for my aunt and uncle's 25th anniversary. I spent a lot of time with two of my cousins - who are really more like siblings/best friends. We were constantly together growing up and anytime we get together is always insanely fun. I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard on more than one occasion.

On Sunday we all (my parents and myself along with my aunt and uncle and two cousins) went to my parent's boat. My sister and I have spent every summer of our lives taking the hour long drive up to the lake. From infants when we had no choice, to children when we loved swimming in the water, to teens when we would have rather been out with friends. Now in my mid-twenties I'm back to going voluntarily. These days my sister isn't a big fan of the motion-sickness-inducing waves, and sadly opts out of the fun.

We boat in northern Illinois right near the border of Wisconsin. The Chain O'Lakes. Oh how to describe the chain... There is a touch of this:

and a much larger touch of this:

Either way it's the polar opposite of living in downtown Chicago but the change of scenery was nice. BTW I think with a bunch of fixing up that little house could be really cute..!

When I was younger I never cared about this history of the chain... history in any form was a bore. But it's suddenly a lot less boring when you find out that Al Capone had a summer house right on the water.
(Al Capone photo credit here, I took the photo of his house)

And for some reason we always swim right near his house. When I was in my teens I teased one of my cousins to be careful of all the dead bodies while swimming. She freaked out and asked my mother if there were actually bodies in the water to which she said "oh no"...she paused for dramatic effect..."they're skeletons by now."

Good one mom.