Trip to Zeeland, MI

Last Wednesday [10/16] my hubby and I drove to Zeeland, MI to visit our youngest son and his family and to watch two sports games the grandchildren were playing in.  It was a beautiful day for traveling to the western side of the state and the color change was almost at its peak.  I tried to get some roadside pictures of the trees as we drove past them, but I wasn't fast enough to capture more than the one photo below.

Granddaughter Ellie was playing in her last volleyball game of the season.  She is in the 7th grade and wore jersey #7.   She's a good athlete like her parents and older sister and brother.

Since it was the last game of the season, the team posed for a picture after the game.  Ellie is second from left in the front row seated on the floor.

Ellie's almost as tall as me, but you don't have to be very tall to pass me up!

Thursday was Landon's football game.   He's a freshman at Holland Christian School.  Their team is called the Maroons.  Landon is the quarterback and wears jersey #10.  They won the game against their opponent 28 to 23.   He has one game left this season.

The game started in daylight and ended in darkness, which made the largest and brightest full moon of 2024 very visible.

On Friday morning, Jeremy gave Landon permission to miss his first two morning classes to go to breakfast with us at the Windmill Restaurant in Holland.  It's a cozy, well-known retro diner in the downtown area that patrons love.  When we arrived at 9:00 a.m. there was a line outside waiting for their turn to enter.

Samantha said everywhere Jeremy goes he sees someone he knows. In the above photo [standing at the right edge of the picture] he was pleasantly surprised to see a roommate from his days at Michigan State University. They hadn't had any contact since their 2002 graduation and were surprised that each of them are now living in the same area.

The Windmill is known for their large cinnamon rolls, so when we finished eating our breakfast orders, Jeremy ordered a cinnamon roll for us to share. I can only imagine how many calories are in one of those!!

We walked off a few calories afterwards by strolling down the center of town.  It was decorated beautifully for fall.

We stopped to have our picture taken by the "Joy of Music Statue".

After a great visit it was time to say goodbye and part ways for this trip.  Samantha gave me some tea to bring home that she purchased at a farmer's market blended by Grand Rapids Tea Company.  I've not heard of them before, but I'm anxious to try it.

Yesterday was a busy day at The Whitney with over 100 guests coming to Mansion Tea and over 300 people with reservations for a Sweetest Day dinner.

Did you have a nice Sweetest Day, if you celebrate it?  I did a quick research and discovered it dates back to 1922 when a dozen of Cleveland's candy companies banded together to make the day a little sweeter for some of the city's most vulnerable people.   They distributed more than 20,000 boxes of candy to newsboys, orphans, old folks, and the poor.

Sweetest Day is now almost synonymous with Valentine's Day with people giving flowers, love trinkets and candy to those they care about most.  It's predominantly celebrated in the Midwest.

One of the male servers at The Whitney told me yesterday that Sweetest Day is now primarily a holiday for men where women give gifts to their boyfriends and husbands to commemorate their love.  I never heard that before, but it sounded like a good idea so I stopped at the Hallmark store after work and bought a card, gift bag and tissue paper, then went to Kroger's and bought my hubby a bag full of assorted dark chocolate candies [his favorite].  It should satisfy his sweet tooth cravings for quite a while.

Have a great week!