Oh my dear sweet Michigan!!

To me Michigan Summers are priceless. Thankfully, this summer I was able to partake in the joys of said Michigan summers for almost a full month, which is pretty great considering that I am living in Portugal!! My time at home was wonderful. I was blessed with the opportunity to come home for a family reunion over the 4th of July as well as tack on a few extra weeks to touch base with supporters and just enjoy my friends and family. I would love to relay all of the details of my time but I'm afraid that it would be too tremendously long that my readers would quickly lose interest! So in order to save words and make the process way more fun for everyone involved I have organized yet another top ten list. (Please don't read too much into the order as it is much too difficult to chose an experience to top all of the others. I guess I should just call it a list. Next time...)

Top Ten Home Joys

10. Getting sufficient time to jog on all my old routes, through the trees of Riley Street Trails, along the windy black top trail hugging Lake Shore drive, through the dear and quaint streets of Zeeland with my friend Erica, and of course, along the 4 mile circumference of my lake, Wolf Lake to be topped off by a refreshing and peaceful dip in the inviting waters.

9. Driving the super cool vehicle my mother's coworker lent me for the month: a very sturdy, authentic, and rustic Dodge Raider that seemed to fit me perfectly all the way down to the final touches of a tuner radio that only seemed to pick up country stations! Talk about a good time cruising to the beach in that beast!!

8. Not only seeing my beloved Chihuahua again and finding lots of time to snuggle with him, but also getting the chance to save his life when he inadvertently jumped out of the pontoon boat! I was able to act quickly enough, throw myself into the water fully clothed and save my cute little bobbing dog before he could no longer stay afloat or was eaten by a large fish! :)

7. Frequenting downtown Holland by popping into JP’s much too often to seem like I have any sort of life outside of coffee dates with dear friends, by shopping at the Outpost, my own personal supplier of everything fun, and by eating at Subs-n-More, the best place on the planet for submarine sandwiches.

6. Being able to spend wonderful quality time with my cousins sitting around bonfires, partaking in the priceless tradition of Friday night Chinese night and even attending a surprise party for one of them!

5. Attending yet another five year Sandbulte Reunion in the middle of Iowinian corn fields with over 600 relatives in attendance. Activities of the weekend included a real live pig roast, a very wet canoe trip, the always ridiculously funny talent show, barn yard games full of cheating and competition, baseball, dancing, volleyball, times of worship and a dangerously close fire works display. These are truly the best things of life.

4. Getting quality time with my parents eating at Fracano’s, the AmVets and Mother’s Cupboard all places that serve deliciously greasy American foods that I am forced to live without for the rest of the year!

3. Watching more of my nephew, Joshua, than the animals at the Sioux Falls Zoo all the while chasing him around, documenting every smile on my camera and stealing tons of hugs and kisses from him in the meantime!!

2. Camping with my dear friend Holly at the Holland State Park for several days that were filled with trying to make pancakes on a grill, jumping multiple times from the pier, laying out to improve our tans and talking for hour upon hours never running out of things to analyze or laugh about.

1. Spending several weekends near my favorite lake in the world, Wolf Lake, all the while cruising for hours on the pontoon boat with my parents, reading in my hammock, kicking butt at beach volleyball and sitting around countless bonfires watching the stars and hearing the wind blow the my trees.

Coming back to Portugal found me refreshed and again ready to see what God has next for me. But what a gift my Michigan has been is to me still.

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