hemlock crossing

so, after church this morning, annie and i decided to have a picnic out at hemlock crossing. well... we just got jimmy john's to go and ate it part way down the trail. if you've never been to hemlock crossing, YOU NEED TO GO! it is such a nice place and they had the grand opening of a nature center/building there about a week ago, but i'll talk more about that later.
we got to the park and headed right out on the trail. just as you start your hike, you cross over the pigeon river (oh there is also a boat launch for kayaks and canoes... awesome).


we saw a few people out on the river kayaking and canoeing. that is definitely something we hope to do a lot of this summer. the river is very windy there and the whole area altogether is somewhat wet and swampy, but in a good way.


there is one spot that we saw a couple of weeks ago when we were there, and so i decided to take a picture of it. its a natural spring. its really cool because this water just comes up out of the ground at the base of this tree and flows out. that's crazy to me... God is soooo cool for designing things like that.


so we eventually found a nice overlook to sit and eat our jimmy john's. this is when we saw most of the people canoeing and kayaking. a few of the canoes had dogs in with them too. we cant wait to get a house so we can have a dog... apartment living just isn't for huskies.


anyway, there was a cool tree that hung over the river so i went out a little ways on it. i was definitely nervous of falling in though, pretty sure it would have hurt seeing as i dont think it was too deep there, and i didnt really feel like injuring myself if i fell in.


well, we continued on the trail and saw lots of cool things... we stopped at a couple of marshy pond areas looking for frog eggs, but with no luck. we decided to hike the whole way to the end and then back. we had been talking about hiking out at pine bend (where we were supposed to get married, but it rained), and not 5 minutes after we were talking about it, we were at pine bend! it was pretty crazy because we never really realized that the two parks were connected by trails.


so after walking around pine bend park a little bit, we hiked back to hemlock crossing and went into the new nature center building. it was amazing inside there. they built the majority of the building with stuff within a 100yd radius of the building... meaning like the wood and stuff like that. it is heated and cooled using geothermal energy, and has some really nice exhibits to learn about the natural habitat of the river and nearby ponds. very cool place to go, especially with young kids. we even got some info to see if they were hiring for part-time summer work, because i can really see annie enjoying/being good at a job like that.

first post and new shoes (its kinda a big deal)

so, i guess we're gonna try this blogging thing and see what happens...to kick off a fun-filled tulip time week, annie and i went out and bought some new shoes (get it, kick). we weren't even planning on getting new shoes, but i'm pretty stoked we did.

the day started by annie's mom coming down to hang out. we went to boatwerks for lunch, and then walked around downtown for a while. while we were in the outpost, annie mentioned that she wanted to look for running shoes at gazelle sports. well she cant get new shoes if i dont get new shoes, so i went downstairs and quickly purchased my much anticipated Vibram FiveFingers. ive been wanting these for a while, so i knew just what i wanted. in no time i was fitted and walking out of the outpost toting my new kicks. they look weird, i know, but they feel soooooo stinkin cool!


from the outpost we went over to gazelle sports. it takes annie about 20 times longer than me to pick out shoes. she went in wanting running shoes, and ended up leaving with some trail running/hiking type of shoes. they're way cool, and it only took trying on like 10 different pairs of shoes in different sizes to find the perfect ones. oh, and side note but the lady that was helping annie with her shoes used to babysit me... her name was jen wasserman then, but now shes married so i didnt catch her new last name. it was pretty crazy seeing her though.



anywho, i think we're off to more adventures tonight. its sprinkling out now, so if the fireworks dont get cancelled then we're going to kollen park!

oh and side note... annie just came in asking if a ate a bagel out of the ones she just bought from meijer (she got two bags), because one bag has 6 bagels and the other has 5. i bet someone ate one in store... weird.