Our holiday weekend kicked off on Friday night with Lori's birthday dinner. It was the third postponement due to complications from Jerry's surgery, but third time is charm and it finally happened.
Saturday was a work day for me, but Sunday was a beautiful end of summer day, so I decided to take Jerry to the Sunflower Festival at Blake's Orchard in nearby Armada, MI. It seemed most of southeastern Michigan went to the festival too! It was VERY busy, but a good opportunity to soak up some sunshine and get a little exercise, and Jerry was glad to get out of the house for something other than a Dr. appointment.
I had no idea Blake's encompasses so much acreage, and the sunflower fields are at the far end of their property. They shuttled guests back to the fields by a train and large tractor driven wagons. I loved the stationary wagon of animated singers below.
As we meandered our way back to the boarding area we passed many vendor tents.
The line for the train and wagons was long, but it moved quickly and the weather was so pleasant nobody seemed to mind.
We boarded by the corn field, and rode past apple and pear orchards, pumpkin patches, and u-pick tomato plants before arriving at the sunflower field. On the way back we passed the lavender field. We opted to get a mason jar to fill with as many sunflowers as it could hold for $20.
Finally we arrived at the sunflower field. For all the sunflowers that were cut by festival attendees, there were still plenty remaining. To get smaller sunflowers we had to walk into the rows a ways because attendees had cut those on the outer perimeter. Once we got among the sunflowers we discovered we weren't the only ones who enjoyed the flowers - the bees liked them even more than we did! Almost every flower had at least one bee on it, and my excitement quickly turned to fear because Jerry is allergic to bees and he didn't have an EpiPen with him. I prayed God would protect him from being stung after everything else he's been through recently, and thankfully we got out of the field without any bee stings.
As you can see in the photo below, the sunflowers were almost as tall as me!
The line was long waiting for a wagon or train ride back to the front of the property, but we weren't in line in the photo below. We were happily seated on the wagon.
Our original plan was to drive from the Sunflower Festival over to the Peach Festival in Romeo, MI, but we decided two events in one day was too ambitious for Jerry recovering from surgery, so we drove home and saved the Peach Festival for today.
I'm enjoying the cheerful sunflowers we brought home with us. They're my favorite flower.
When I checked my Facebook page this morning a 'memory' came up from Sept. 6, 2018 where I posted, "Off to The Whitney Restaurant for my second day on the job." Three years have passed so quickly and now I begin year #4.
We left home around 11:00 this morning to go to the 90th Annual Peach Festival in Romeo. It's another picture perfect day. First stop was Frontier Town on the way to Romeo. We quickly browsed the vendor tents then went to the farmer's market area to purchase some peaches.
A dozen of these beauties came home with us.
Before we left Frontier Town we stopped by 'Bake My Day' to purchase two peach hand pies. They were delicious!
Then we were off to downtown Romeo. The parade was yesterday, but there was still a lot of people walking around town enjoying the beautiful weather.
I couldn't resist taking a picture of a newly painted mural on the side of one of the buildings.
Jerry didn't feel up to anymore walking, but before heading home we decided to drive by our new church building which was close by. This Wednesday night we are hoping to have enough people to completely encircle the exterior of the building for a dedication prayer before our first service this coming Sunday, Sept. 12th. It's finally happening - our permanent place of worship. To God be the glory!
Hope you've had a enjoyable holiday weekend!
I'm glad you were able to celebrate with Lori, and especially glad that Jerry's doing well enough to get out in the sunshine and enjoy the sunflowers! They are gorgeous, and I'm also very glad the bees left you both alone. Your church building is gorgeous, and I love the idea of a prayer circle surrounding it as you prepare to begin using it for worship.
ReplyDelete