My Michigan Trip

In February, I took a short weekend trip up to Grand Rapids, Michigan with my best friend, Elena. We visited and stayed at Calvin College, which is where Elena's older sister and brother attend. There was 2 1/2 feet of snow on the ground when we arrived on Valentines Day, so it was wonderful to enjoy the chilly 19 degree temperatures versus the sunny 80 degrees in Florida!! I thoroughly enjoyed the snow and all of the fun activities you can do in it.. sledding, ice skating and snowball fights! It was great to get away from "reality" and just have fun with friends. I had a blast.. here are a few photo's from my trip:

Behind me is the soccer field.. good thing it's the off season!

What to do when bored?
Grab some friends, a lunch tray from the cafeteria and find a hill to sled down!
(watch out for rocks..)

Elena and me

It snowed the night we arrived in Michigan and the day after!

Ice skating.. haven't done that in awhile!
Especially on REAL ice.

Building up my confidence..

And finally getting the hang of it!

Best friends- Elena and Sera
(we've been in school together since 5th grade)

This is me and Patrick, a friend of Elena's I met while up in Michigan.
Patrick was adopted from Hong Kong when he was 13 years old so he was really excited to hear about my adopted siblings, especially Asher. Meeting Patrick, I was able to look into the future and see what Asher will be like in about 10 years.

The Grand Rapids Airport..

So.. our flight was supposed to depart from Grand Rapids around 2:20 pm on Sunday afternoon. Elena and I arrived at the airport at 1:50 pm, scared we would miss the flight! Fortunately, the airport is so small that we made it to our gate with time to spare. Around 2:30 pm, we heard over the loud speaker that the plane had some mechanical problems and needed to be repaired, so we wouldn't be taking off until 3:45 pm. That was fine.. Elena and I both had some school work we had neglected to do! At 4:00 pm, we found out that the plane needed a new part in order to fly, but the part would have to be flown in from an incoming flight from Detroit. Our flight was now delayed until 7:00 pm! Happy to have some extra time in Michigan-since we weren't ready to leave-Elena's brother picked us up and we hung with him at his house. Anticipating we would be leaving that night, we headed back to the airport for our flight. 7:00 came and went.. so did 7:30.. and finally around 8:30 pm, the gate attendant delivered the news that our flight would be permanently delayed until 8 am the NEXT morning! (Because of more mechanical problems) So.. while the poor children cried because they couldn't go to Disney World, Elena and I happily went to retrieve our suitcases and headed back to Calvin! (We did feel really bad for everyone who wanted to leave- I think we were the only ones who wanted to STAY!)
The next morning our 8:00 am flight didn't take off until 10:30 am.. and we barely made it because another blizzard was rolling in! It was quite the experience, and I would never fly Northwest Airlines again except for the fact that I now have over $150 worth of vouchers!
Since Elena will be attending Calvin in the fall, I'll use the vouchers to visit. =)