October 8-9 Detroit Visit

Friday and Saturday:  I left Grand Rapids shortly after noon Friday and drove to Detroit. My niece, Shelley, is having a book signing for the launch of her new children's book: "This Joy!" over at Barne's & Nobels in Clinton Township tomorrow afternoon, and I was invited to come. Yes! 

I made a brief stop at the outlets in Howell to break up my trip a little bit. I shopped clearance at Eddie Bauer, spent $23 and got a long-sleeve "T" and a soft hoodie in the bargain. I was pleased. I also ran into Bath and Body Works and got a Warm Vanilla Sugar fragrance bottle.

When I arrived at Ruthanne and Terry's we visited for a bit and then went to eat at Bubba's, one of their favorite restaurants. I like it very much too! They have super good food and the dining room is surrounded by large screen televisions airing all kinds of interesting sports stuff. We had a nice time out together and then came home and played a game of Scrabble (which I actually won).

Saturday morning, we hung out at the house and watched all of beautiful birds come to feed at their outdoor feeders. They have a bunch of pesky squirrels that have figured out how to break into every single feeder they have! Terry has a bee-bee gun as well as a pellet gun that he uses to scare them away as well as a very large number of black birds that descend upon their yard at least once per day to eat all of the bird food that wasn't intended for them whatsoever. At one point, one of the brown squirrels had been stealing all of the food from the feeder, hopped down for a minute and was on its way back up when Terry fired a pellet and ... killed it ... I'm not sure he intended to, but it fell to the ground and squirmed for about 30 seconds and then died. Ruthanne was quite upset to have witnessed it and Terry felt badly for her. We went outside afterwards to look at its body and Terry disposed of it. I touched it--so soft--but hey, you can't just let the squirrels eat all of the bird food!

Here are a few pictures from the book signing--I wish I had taken more:

Shelley is so creative, and she is very good with children. She had two craft tables set up: one to make paper finger puppets (super cute) and another to make a paper megaphone (I don't have a picture of that table), both activities were easy to do without supervision -- and both appear in Shelley's book too, which made it extra cool. I LOVE puppets of all kinds!

The book signing went well--not a TON of people like there was for her first Beatrice book, but enough people that came and congratulated Shelley and had their books signed. It was fun to see it all happen. Shelley's husband, Bob, was there the entire time to support her and help her greet guests.

Terry, Ruthanne and I just hung out around the bookstore--what an easier place to hang out is there than a book store? Terry's sister, Barb, came at about 3:00 and we visited with her. She is such a nice person to talk with and I haven't had the opportunity to do that for a very long time. 

Afterwards we ate out at Mod Pizza (I think that's what it was called) with Bob and Matthew and Nolan too. We had a nice time visiting with them at the restaurant. It's so nice to see family!