Sometimes it seems that the trend in West Michigan is for people to move out West, especially to Colorado. This seems to be due to a lack of jobs in Michigan as well as the yearning for mountains, more days of sunshine, less humidity and more adventure sports that come with Colorado.


Because of this, Sean and I had a lot of people to stay with and see out West during our road trip. On my last day with Linde and Joe we got up early and went to yoga and then got breakfast at a local Mexican place. Now, I am not particularly coordinated or flexible but I was interested to learn more about this fun part of life for Joe and Linde. In Fort Collins, yoga is really popular and there are several studios and gyms devoted entirely to the practice. Sure, I've done my share of 'yoga for dummies' type classes at generic gyms like 24 Hour Fitness and the like, but I've never attended an actual yoga class aimed not only at decreasing stress/increasing flexibility but also exploring the spiritual and historical aspects. Needless to say, I was way out of my league. Fortunately, the teacher, who was fabulous, was good at challenging her more advanced students while simultaneously helping the beginners to limp along without too much pain or embarrassment. Right away we did some "om-ing" and chanting in Sanskrit. I was impressed, a little intimidated and extremely exhausted - I won't even tell you how I felt the next day but I am sure you can imagine.


After yoga and breakfast, Sean picked me up and we met some friends from Holland who had moved out to Colorado recently. We walked around the music festival for awhile and then got lunch and margaritas downtown.


Sean and I had also made plans to meet up with some of my birth family - my aunt Rita and cousin April and her two kids. We met them for dinner on our drive from Fort Collins to Denver. It was really special to be able to see them in person before we head back to China - they were also eager to hear engagement/wedding details.


In Denver we explored the heart of the city with Rob and his girlfriend and enjoyed Sangria at a bar downtown. Denver was a really neat city and my favorite part while walking around was seeing and listening to the pianos that the city made available every so often - outside, right on the street! Then we headed to Phil and Roxy's house to stay for the night. The next day we drove seemingly forever and ended up camping at a KOA in Kansas City, MO. Camping was fine, but it really made us appreciate the fact that for our entire trip we had fun places to stay with friends and family instead of lame hotels or generic campgrounds.

Staying with Linde and Joe was a blast - they were great hosts and showed me a fun time in Colorado. One thing that I really enjoyed was exploring the downtown and visiting some of their favorite places. The weekend that I was in Fort Collins there was a music festival going on so on Saturday we rode bikes in along a river to experience some good food and music.


The downtown was packed with people, vendors, bikes, dogs and stages with performing musicians. One of the things I noticed was the waste disposal system. Every garbage can had three options: compost, recycle and trash and at each can there was a volunteer available to help you if you were unsure of the correct decision. Another vendor that I was excited about was Dole Whip - a non-dairy soft serve fruit ice cream. Linde and I both had cones and they were delicious!


My most favorite stop was the brewery tour at the New Belgian Brewing Company. This is the company that makes the beer called Fat Tire which is pretty well known around the Midwest. The brewery tour was a lot of fun - the guides were young and enthusiastic, we received a lot of free and unique beers to try and the tour itself was very entertaining and thorough. The coolest thing about the tour was hearing about the unique environmentally friendly/outdoorsy culture that the company has created and now promotes.


Employees are encouraged to take care of the environment in a number of ways, the main one being biking to work. After your first year of work as an employee, New Belgian gives you a brand new special, one-of-a-kind bike so that you can become a part of the biking club too. Working for the company seems like it would be a lot of fun. The building has slides, games, couches and a climbing wall among other entertainment. Every Friday each worker goes home with a 12 pack of the beer of their choice. Needless to say, competition for New Belgian jobs is fierce and it's almost impossible to get a position.


Micro-brewed beers and bikes seem to be the hottest topics in Fort Collins at the moment and almost nobody drinks 'boring' beers like Bud or Miller - who would when there are several fabulous micro-breweries in the downtown area alone?! Nobody has a 'boring' bike there either and the fad that I noticed was something called a 'fixed gear' bike. This means that the pedals are directly connected to the wheel so they always have to be moving and you can't coast. Again, just spending a few days in Colorado was enough for me to be impressed and entertained by another cool mini-culture of the best country in the world.

Sean and I have been looking forward to visiting Colorado for a long time. Some of his childhood friends live in Denver and one of my closest friends, Linde (from the pony farm) lives near Fort Collins with her husband, Joe, a horse called Trooper, their two boxers, Fallon and Rouwen and an African Grey parrot named Morrocco.



As long as I have known Linde I have wanted to be just like her especially since she was a year older and got to do everything first. I wanted to study biology because she did, I wanted to speak Spanish because she could and I wanted to move to Colorado after she did. I can actually remember the moment I met Linde. I was eight years old and we crossed paths going to and from the tack room in the pony barn. I can still see her standing there in a white GoodHeart tee shirt, long blond hair and round glasses. After we decided to go on a ride together we were pretty much inseparable after that. Her pony was named Nicky and could "ride double" (have two riders on its back at one time) so that worked out perfectly for two horse-crazy girls. Even though we only lived down the road from each other we decided to become pen pals. I have years of letters that we wrote to each other and they are some of the most precious memories I have.


I hadn't been to Colorado in a long time and since my last visit Linde and Joe had acquired a house, garden and many fun pets. Needless to say the current visit was long overdue and I am so glad that things worked out and we could make it happen. I worked on a ranch in Colorado during the summer after graduation and loved it but I've slowly forgotten what it's like to live out here. Here's some words that are quintessential Colorado: organic, community farming, food co-op, compost, Chacos, Keens, Carhart, cowboy boots and hat, bikes, Fat Tire beer and New Belgian brewing company, hiking and mountains. A new word I've learned is "vermiculture" which means to compost with worms - and it's really popular here! A lot of people have their own vermicultures right under their sinks along with their compost!


Basically, Colorado is filled with a bunch of fun-seeking cowboys, hippies, outdoor enthusiasts and environmentally friendly fanatics. Linde describes herself as being somewhere in the middle of the cowgirls and eco-hippies. She and Joe garden, compost, knit sweaters, take pottery classes, go to yoga, eat local and organic (as much as possible), own a total of 6 bikes, live simply and pretty much love life. It has been really fun staying with them so I get the native Colorado experience which is fun, laid back and healthy. Obviously, Sean and I have stumbled into another interesting and entertaining subculture of the US.


Some of my highlights of hanging out in Colorado have been going to see Norah Jones at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre (unfortunately we got rained on a little bit but we got cozy and toughed it out), eating burgers at Big Al's, making salads at Mad Greens, visiting Linde's horse, going for a bike ride to a local bar for micro-brews and fried pickles, watching home movies of Linde and me at the pony barn, and just hanging out and catching up. I already don't want this visit to end!

We left on our road trip on Tuesday morning which turned out to be pretty busy and a little tiring due to the events of the day before. On Monday, Sean proposed (ahh!) so instead of spending the afternoon packing and preparing, we spent time with family and friends celebrating. I am so excited to be engaged and I am so glad he asked when he did because it sure makes this road trip more exciting and fun when we get to show and celebrate with everyone in person. We are going to get married some time next summer. I am sure wedding planning from China will be a cinch so no worries there (joke). I feel blessed to have such an amazing mom to help me through all of this - I'm not really sure we could pull all of this off without her. In fact, in the past few days, loads of people have already said something to the effect of, "Good thing you have a great mom to help you while you are away!" and they are right. Thanks Mom - I appreciate you so much!


One of the coolest thing about our American road trip was being able to see our country with new (and very appreciative eyes) after being in China for a year. We drooled over the awesome food, marveled on the consistent and organized traffic flow, breathed in the clean air and loved the blue skies. Plus, travel by car in the US seems easy when compared with traveling in Asia - it almost takes all the fun and challenge out of it. Almost.


The other thing that we noticed was that we were more excited and aware of the cultural differences and oddities that America has to offer - especially between the regions of the Midwest and the West. These differences are always fun to hear about and provide a lot of entertainment. For example, our first stop on the trip was to see Sean's grandma, uncle and two cousins in Illinois. For years I have been hearing about a certain food called tenderloins which the Doyle family has been enjoying in Illinois forever. Pork tenderloins aren't all that popular in Michigan or if they are, I have never heard of them. Since I wanted to try one, we all went out and had them for lunch. A tenderloin is a piece of pork that is pounded, breaded, fried and then placed on a bun with pickles, onion, ketchup and mustard. The interesting thing about them is that the meat is way bigger than the bun. I was skeptical at first but by the first bite I was sold - pork tenderloins are delicious.


After stopping for lunch we headed to Iowa where we planned to meet Ken (fellow teacher in China) and his family in a suburb of Des Moines. We were really looking forward to seeing Ken again and meeting his family which we had heard so much about. We arrived just before dinner which turned out to be some of the best food we have had since being home: chips and guacamole, BBQ chicken, grilled vegetables, noodles, bread and homemade brownies. YUM. It was pretty awesome. If you know Ken, it wouldn't surprise you that his family is immensely entertaining with his dad being the chief antagonist and we had some interesting and hilarious conversations over beers in the screen porch. They educated Sean and I on two other Midwest staples that I had never heard of: Maid-Rites (kind of like sloppy Joes) in Iowa and Runzas (bread pockets stuffed with meat and cabbage) in Nebraska. I can't wait to try these other Midwest delicacies.

It's fun to travel - especially in your own country!

Today Sean and I are starting off on a car trip to visit friends and family in the US. First we are stopping in Illinois to visit some of Sean's family and then we are driving to Iowa and visiting Ken, a fellow teacher who we met in China. Tomorrow we are driving to Colorado and I am going to visit Linde, a childhood friend and Sean is staying with his friends Rob and Phil. After a few days in the mountains we are camping in Kansas City for the night en route to Columbus, OH where we will visit my friends from graduate school before finally heading back to Michigan.

It should be a fun (and rather long) trip - Sean drives the moving van with my stuff from storage back around the 25th but I'm staying around until about the 29th. I won't be blogging much from the road so that will explain my lack of posts for the next two weeks. But I will be sure share some pics and stories from our adventure when I get back. Happy August!

It has been awesome to have my sister, Sue, home for a week. Sue lives in Pennsylvania so I don't get the chance to see her that much even when I am living in the states. Since my sister shares the same fondness for our hometown of Holland that I do, it is especially fun to have someone to hang out with and revisit some favorite spots.


For Sue's first day we went to the Holland State Park for some swimming and sunning at the beach and later we had a pizza picnic by the channel to watch the boats come in off the big lake. Tuesday and Wednesday we hung out downtown, went to the farmers' market, visited Hope College and the pony farm, and had lots of delicious homemade meals on the porch.


On Thursday, Sue's boyfriend, Lucas, arrived from Ohio to spend the weekend. The whole gang loaded up into the van and headed for downtown where we had burgers and hot dogs at Froggys and then walked the strip.


Two different things were going on down town: sidewalk sales and the street performers. The sidewalk sales happen once a summer and you can usually find some pretty great deals. The street performers happen every Thursday night from June to August and are always highly entertaining. Eighth street was packed with people out shopping for a bargain and others watching the performers. There was a strong man, mime, clown, magician, jugglers, dancers, singers, musicians, balloon animal makers . . . etc. It was a lot of fun. We finished off the night with homemade nutty paddle pops from the Peanut Store, a classic Holland tradition.


Lucas is a true buckeye through and through and wasn't that sure about coming up to the evil state of Michigan. He told us that his dad said that the best part of Michigan is "the part that is underwater." Hmmmm. I'll do my best to change his mind and after a weekend with the Sandersons in Holland I'm pretty sure he'll come around.

You know how many little girls go through a 'horse phase'? Well, my equine obsessions went on for a solid eight years and there are still frequent relapses even now (today being one of those days).


Fortunately, during childhood, I was lucky enough to live close enough to an actual working pony farm - a pre-pubescent girl's fantasy come true. We lived down the street from Teusink's Pony Farm and I grew up watching older girls clip clop down the block on horseback while I watched from the yard and counted down the years until I turned eight, the age when I could 'rent' a pony all for my very own.


Just to be clear, a pony is not a baby horse as some of you might assume. A pony is actually just a small type of horse much like how a Chihuahua is a small type of dog. I remember, crystal clear, the day my mom took me to the farm to meet my first pony, Sugarbabe. It was raining and I was wearing my red rubber boots and my green plaid raincoat. I was so excited and happy I almost couldn't stand it. Larry, one of the generations of farmers that have lived and worked at Teusinks, showed me how to brush, saddle and bridle Sugarbabe and before I knew it I was on my very first ride. It was a pretty awesome feeling for an eight-year-old . . . heck, it's still an awesome feeling.


I spent pretty much all of my childhood at the farm. From April 1 to October 30 you could lease your own pony for about $300 - and you didn't even have to pay for food or shots or anything - Larry took care of everything. So, on school days my sister and I were at the farm from 3-7pm and in the summer from 10-5. It was idyllic to say the least. Our days were filled with barefoot and bareback games of "cowboys and Indians", rodeos, jumping, races, playing with kittens, swimming in the creek and playing in the hay loft.


Each year, as you got older and grew bigger you could graduate to a new pony. My ponies were: Sugarbabe, Go-Go-Girl, Sugar, Dustin and Stormy and my first horse was Bea Jay at a different farm. But not only did we grow close to our furry friends we made human friends too. I met one of my best friends, Linde, while at Teusinks and I am heading out to visit her in Colorado next week. My other pony pal, Kim, went to college with me and writes a blog called One.


Since my sister is home this week and also loved the farm we decided to pay it a visit this evening. Oh, man. Stepping out of the car and smelling the barn and farm smell was like a rush of narcotics to the head. I almost burst into tears when I saw all of the little girls racing around on their ponies and my sister had to tell me to 'pull it together.' They were having a special pony slumber party so they could ride late into the night and then sleep over in the barn. Awesome! I was totally jealous and was ready to ask to join in immediately but the best I got was an offer to sit on one of the ponies. As you can see, I'm a little too big - my feet almost touch the ground!


We had so much fun talking to the girls, visiting the ponies, petting the kitties and then talking with Larry. We even went to visit the big barn with the harness racing horses, draft horses, cows, pigs, donkeys, sheep, goats, bunnies and chickens. It was a delightful evening and I am reveling in the fact that I still smell like a barn even though I am sitting in bed. We fed some of the old favorites (Spice, Babe, Cinnamon, King and Midnight) carrots and gave a lot of pony kisses on the nose. Fact: you can never have too many pony kisses.


I would go back to being eight in a second if it meant I could spent a few more days having fun on the farm. Sigh. I love ponies.