Back Home

10 days and nearly 3000 kilometres of driving later, we arrived back home from our summer vacation on Sunday night.

It was an amazing time away. We had the opportunity to see so many things that it would be hard to re-cap them all, but here are some highlights:


Dutch Village
In Holland Michigan we stopped in at the Dutch Village. At first I thought it would be kind of corny, but it ended up making a really awesome day. I learned a lot about the country of my ancestors and enjoyed some really good Dutch food.


Chicago
I can't say enough good things about Chicago. It's been a dream of mine to visit the city for years and to actually be there was incredible. It's such a beautiful city and one of those big cities that still has a small town feel. We got to see a lot during our few days there including the Shedd Aquarium, Alder Planetarium, John Hancock Center, Magnificent Mile, Water Tower Place, and Navy Pier. We even went on a double decker bus tour and a boat tour of the Chicago river. I would go back in a heartbeat.


Lambeau Field
During our time in Wisconsin we stayed an hour away from Green Bay and since we were so close my brother and I insisted on making the drive to see Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers. The tour didn't disappoint. We were taken to a lot of "behind the scenes" places including the Packers private box and the tunnel that the players run through to get to the field. It an experience of a lifetime to see the place where so many legacies were made.

Blue Harbour Resort
We spent the last five days of our vacation at the Blue Harbour Resort on the shores of Lake Michigan in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It was a beautiful hotel that we were fortunate to be able to stay at because normally their rates are pretty expensive, but we were able to get a reduced rate, plus two nights free! While there we made a lot of use of the hotels waterpark and I made a lot of use of the Starbucks in the lobby.

The Bull
Our hotel had a deal with The Bull (a Jack Nicklaus course) so we hit the links. The course was outstanding and was the nicest one I've had the privilege of playing. It was so fancy that our golf cart even had a computer with a GPS in it so that we knew exactly how far we were from the pin at any given time. Classy.

So yeah, it was an incredible time away. I haven't been on a vacation that long in many years and it was overdue. Just to be able to take a break from the routine and explore new places and meet new people was great. Wonder where next year will take us? Any suggestions?

Back in Ten

Gas: $1.45 a litre. Golf clubs: $245. A ten day vacation: priceless.

I'm off on our ten day summer holiday! I won't likely have internet access while we're gone, but I will post a full run-down along with some photos when we get back.

In the meantime, here are some sites worth checking out:

Reuter's Oddly Enough

The Fischtank

97 Seconds With God

Reading & Writing

I've gotten into the routine of writing every night before I turn the tv on and it's been paying off. Over the past two months I've written over 30,000 words, mostly for my next book. It's been amazing to watch it all come together and I'm very much looking forward to working on it more in the coming weeks. My hope is to have the manuscript finished by the end of August.

Speaking of books, I've really been enjoying the wisdom found in "It's A Good Life" by Robert Benson lately. He talks a lot about balance and uses Benedict as a model of how to balance our lives. It's given me a lot to think about.

Last week I also started "The Shack" by William Young, but after a few pages I decided to save the rest for our vacation. We leave Friday and I wanted to have a couple good books with me and I can't stop hearing good things about "The Shack", so I figure it's a good one to start with!

Happy Birthday Canada!

Today we celebrate Canada Day and I know I'm majorly biased on this, but it really is a great place to live.

To commemorate, here are some random facts about my home and native land:

-Canada has the world's longest coastline: 202 080 kilometres.

-The Trans-Canada Highway length (using the Perth-Peterborough-Parry Sound route) is 7604 kilometres. It is the longest national highway in the world.

-The world's largest island in a freshwater lake is Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, 2765 square kilometres.

-Canada is the second largest country in the world, with 9,971,000 square kilometres of land.

-The world's highest tide is in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. The mean large tide range is 16.1 metres.

-And finally, Canada is the home of the following inventions: basketball, the electric light bulb, the electric range, the electron microscope, standard time, the television, the telephone, and the zipper.

Happy Birthday Canada!