I try to visit home at least once a year, and my friends in Florida always ask me why I choose to go to Michigan in the winter when it's cold and the skies are gray. As charming as Michigan can be in the summer, I enjoy holding on to one tradition by always making it home to celebrate the holiday with my family. The entire family on my mom's side still gets together for a party and it's incredible, no one ever misses it. Every year, we are all there celebrating together.
Jeremy and I visited Michigan for 5 days in between Christmas and New Year's after spending Christmas Day in Philadelphia with Jeremy's family. Be sure to check out my LOVE from Philly blog!
My mom picked us up from the airport in Grand Rapids and we drove downtown to grab some lunch at San Chez Bistro. The three of us shared some tapas and we filled my mom in on our Philly trip. Afterwards, we made our way to Founders Brewing and found it to be hopping, per usual! Jeremy is a big All Day IPA fan and was super impressed with the brewery. Such a great atmosphere. I had two or three of my favorite beers, the Rubaeus, and then we picked up a few six-packs to bring with us to girls night later.
I wanted to show Jeremy the whole brewery trail downtown, but we were running short on time and ended up making our final stop at Atwater Brewing. We definitely won't miss New Holland the next time we visit! At Atwater we ordered a mushroom pizza to split and were thoroughly impressed. I dare to say, this may have been the best mushroom pizza I have tried thus far. We also ordered a flight of beer!
Afterwards, my mom dropped us at my friend Leah's (thanks, mom) so we could check out her new house before heading to Sydney's for girls night. The last two years Sydney's parents have hosted 8 or so girls for a night of eating, laughing, shotskis, thunderstruck, and blaring 90's hip-hop. They are truly the best and most accommodating hosts. I don't come home very often or for very long, so having all my girls together really means so much to me!
The next day, we spent most of the day at my cousin's house for our family Christmas. This is always one of my favorite days of the year and I have so much gratitude towards my family for making sure this happens year after year. I am now that adult family member that tells my little cousins how much they have grown since the last time I saw them, but I can't help it! It's true what they say, we grow up too fast.
The following day we drove up to Lake Odessa to visit my Aunt Darcy and her family. We always have so much fun catching up and share many laughs! Again, we ate a ton of food, including phenomenal brisket, fresh baked dinner rolls, and banana cream pie. This was the first time my sister, my cousin Alley, and I have all gotten together with our boyfriends, and I have to admit we nailed the group photo tradition this year!
Our short trip was coming to an end, so on our last morning we braved the wind and snow for a 3-mile run from my mom's house over to my grandparent's. A few of my younger cousins were over and made lunch for everyone. It was my first time trying their signature pizza meatloaf but I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised! We also played a ton of cards, which is pretty typical in my family.
We left for the airport around 5am the next morning and there had been a huge snowstorm over night. Thankfully, our flight didn't get delayed and we had a pretty smooth trip home. It was hard to believe how fast our holiday trips went by, but we had a blast! This was the first year we spent Christmas together since we started dating and it felt pretty effortless acclimating into each other's family.
December 2019
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