Our visit to Michigan

So I said that I would blog about our trip to Michigan for my grandma's funeral. I must say that amidst ALL the sadness God blessed us with a beautiful family trip that is etched in my memory forever!!! Not only were we surrounded by our family but tons of fluffy white snow....which we get NONE of in the great state of TN!!! I grew up with snow so I was excited to go back to it but Jon really never experienced the fun of living in it so he was very very excited to go! We found a little house to "rent" for the weekend and it was perfect! The kids weren't confined to a hotel room and it was kinda in a woods setting so lots of privacy, birds, snow.....just good nature!!! We had fun seeing family that we rarely get to see and we're able to catch up, eat some great food (I tell you my husband is getting soooo used to vegetarian foods and is enjoying it more and more which warms my heart), laugh (which is soooo good for the soul), and just be together. 

Here is what we did:

Ate snow sandwich's 

Sledding

Daddy and his girls

Jon and I

Snow Angel making!

Catching snow on tongues! 

Digging tunnels in huge mounds of snow to crawl thru....thanks daddy!!!

Spent time with lots of family.....I didn't even get to take a picture of everyone we were with so sorry to those I missed but here are a few shots....

Cousins

Emery slept with my mom every night. They read books, talked, and sang.....she loved every minute of it and I think it was good for my mom too!

This wood burning stove was our source of heat and so Jon was the round the clock wood stocker!!! He loved it!!

My mom, cousin who we call uncle but is really more like a dad to me (being silly) and his wife Nancy

Little sweet Lauren sucking on some bread!

My cousin Andrew and Tay

Klaus and Alise

My cousins Natacha and Peter

Cousins who rarely get to see each other but instantly re-love being together!!!! There was lots of laughing, running around, hugging, and squealing going on! 

Mom and the girls before leaving Michigan....little did we know we were about to hit the treacherous weather of Indiana/Kentucky!!! 

So like I said above we hit the bad storm which everyone knows about.....it was so bad that it was ALL over the news! We were stuck in a little tiny town in Indiana for 3 days/3 nights and it was really just what the Dr/God ordered!!! It was good not to have to jump back into life and we were forced to just sit in a hotel and visit, relax, and play with the kids. The workers didn't care that we took over the lobby and made it into our own living room so that we were not stuck sitting in our rooms. We luckily stayed somewhere with an indoor pool and I went to Walmart where I found dance leotards to wear as make shift bathing suits!!! 

Cars were iced shut, obviously you can see below the ice hanging from the trees. This caused huge damage to larger trees which were weighted down by it. Thousands of people were without electricity. Thankful we made it to that hotel safe and had a warm place to stay! 

Getting back on the road to head home. You can see some of the damage, this picture does NO justice to the devastation this storm brought!!