It's about time!!

Well, now the time has come for your parents to finally chime in. After all the chatter amongst the Hutchinson crew, we finally have time to sit and write and actually add some photos. By the way, GO TIGERS!! If any of you non-sports types hadn't heard, our beloved Tigers defeated the evil empire, New York Yankees (sorry Eric, I don't mean to step on your team -- but we love the Tigers, as does your mother [we'll send you all some souvenir T-shirts soon]).

Now down to business. Mom and I traveled up north, to da UP ehh, for our annual October trip and had a great time. We visited Tahquamenon Falls and the Shipwreck Museum. The first day was beautiful, although on the chilly side, but bright and sunny. We enjoyed walking around the falls and taking some very nice pictures of the falls and surrounding area. The leaves were spectacular, turning different shades of yellow, orange and red. I will post some pictures we took there. We stayed the night in Paradise, MI and ate at a fun little family restaurant. We stayed at a motel that was right on the shore of Lake Superior. The next morning we layed around watching it rain and watched a sea gull sitting on the fence enduring the wind and the rain.

It was very relaxing and fun. We drove up to Whitefish Point and toured the museum and learned about a number of the 6,000 shipwrecks that have happened on the Great Lakes, including one of the most famous, immortalized in song by Gordon Lightfoot, the Edmund Fitzgerald.

This bell and life preserver are from that ship. On the way home, we stopped again at the family restraurant for lunch and were surprised to discover that we couldn't sit in the main area because a bus tour was just about to arrive with a large group of Jimmy Buffet fans who wanted to eat a cheeseburger in Paradise. We are not familiar with his music but we think he has a song, or at least mentions in one of his songs, eating a cheeseburger in Paradise. This group was an incredible menagerie of people wearing bright Hawaiian shirts and leis and some had hats with parrots on top. It was pretty funny (although they kept going in and out of the front door and often left it open, much to our chagrin because it was fairly cold outside). Sorry these pictures will make you ex-Michiganders homesick, since you won't see this much color in your tree's in Utah (I'm not sure that applies to trees in North Carolina).


One last piece of unfinished business, Mom mentioned the hard work Jim and I put in to plant shrubs around the back and West side of the house. It was challenging for we who don't normally do that type of hard labor. It does look great and we are excited about the future prospects for the appearance of the house.



As Pooh says, TTFN.

We love you all and are so proud you are in our family.

Mom and Dad