I had last Friday off because New Year’s Eve fell on a Saturday, and I had Monday off as well, so Mer and I decided to take a trip out to Michigan to see Mom and Marc, whom we had not seen since last July. We headed out around one on Friday, and we made very good time since we ate before we left; we got to Mom and Marc’s place a little after 5:00. We did not have any extravagant plans that evening – we ate with Mom and Marc, and we visited, and Marc beat me in three straight games of chess. It was a pleasant and mellow evening.

We decided that Mer could be in charge of Saturday. We slept in, and I walked down to the beach and then into town with Mom for about an hour-long walk. Late in the morning, Mer and I headed out to the small town of Dowagiac. Dowagiac has a decent three-block-long downtown that has some nice restaurants and shops along it. Being that it was New Year’s Eve, most shops were closed, but the restaurants were still open. Mer had wanted to eat at a classic ice cream parlor, Caruso’s, but they had a very limited “real food” menu, and they had no public restrooms. We had wandered the downtown before going into the ice cream place, so we popped over to the nearby Italian restaurant, Woodfire. What a great find. It was a classic old building with high, tin-covered ceilings, and the place smelled great. They were playing fun swing music and 40s-era songs, and the booths were comfortable and pretty private. The food was fantastic. We certainly need to go back there again. We had a wonderful lunch, and then we headed over to Caruso’s for dessert. The place reminded me a lot of Taggart’s, a local ice cream place we have in Canton. Caruso’s also had a very good-looking candy counter, but we did not try any on this trip.

After dessert, we headed over to the town of Paw Paw, where we toured a winery. While we do not drink wine, the tours of how they make wine are interesting, and in this winery (St. Julian), they bottled fruit juices. We picked up a bottle of carbonated raspberry juice, which later proved to be excellent; Mer even liked it, and she usually only drinks water.

After the winery tour, we wandered the very cute downtown area of Paw Paw. They have a lot of water in and around the town, so we wandered to the lake and then followed a river partway back to our car. It looks like a great town to go explore when it is warmer.

We headed back to Mom and Marc’s place, but made a detour on the way home. We stopped at the Chocolate Garden, where they make truffles. Mer tried the pick-three sampler, twice, so she sampled very small amounts of six different truffles. She was very pleased with that. I passed, as I was getting hungry again for real food. We drove back home, passing though St. Joseph’s, one of our favorite Michigan towns. They have a high bluff that overlooks the lake, and the bluff was heavily decorated with lights for the Christmas season. The lights were not on yet, as it was still daylight out, but we talked about coming back to see them.

Back at home, Marc had made his excellent burgers. Mom and Marc had to make an appearance at a friend’s house, but told us we could eat if we wanted. I was quite hungry, so I ate, but Mer waited for Mom and Marc to get back later in the evening. Once they were back, and everyone had eaten, we talked about going to see the lights on the bluff in St. Joe’s. Mom and Marc said they would be happy to go along, so we piled in Marc’s car and headed north.

The night was fairly cool, and the wind was quite biting when it blew, but the bluff was beautiful. The entire bluff was decked out in lights, and we got there in time to see the synchronized-to-music light show that happens once an hour. The entire walk was probably over a half-mile long, and was magical (if a bit cold at times). What a great way for a town to show itself off. Even with the cold, there were a good number of people out on the bluff looking at the lights and enjoying the music.

We went back home, and Mom and Marc dashed off to another party. I tried to stay up for the new year, but gave up at 11:30. I told Mer she could wake me, and she did. So, we wished each other a very happy new year, and I went back to sleep. Despite being lame about going to sleep early, I had wrapped up the year in a fine fashion.

Last Wednesday Mer and I went over to the home of our friends and colleagues Dave and Chrissy Kamp. They had invited us over for dinner, and we happily accepted. The Kamps live nearby, just ten minutes away or so, so it was a relaxed drive to a relaxing evening.

Mer and I are very fond of Dave and Chrissy. Dave is fairly quiet, with a good sense of humor and a very helpful spirit – Dave was one of my friends who helped me put on a new roof two years ago. Chrissy is always “on” – she is energetic and very funny. Dave teaches chemistry and Chrissy teaches calculus at CVCA. They have a son, Tyler, who is eight and is quiet and seems to be bright (he spent much of our after-dinner time playing with an electronics kit).

Dave and Chrissy collaborated on dinner. We had pork chops, broccoli and cheese, stuffing, and crescent rolls. It was excellent. Dessert was a berry pie with ice cream. We chatted a lot about work, especially J-term, since it is upon us. Dave and Chrissy are leading a J-term trip to Alabama to Space Camp for the second year in a row, and the trip is full again this year. Next year they hope to do a diving excursion to the Bahamas. We sat around the living room while we talked, so I got to help Tyler once in awhile on his circuit projects. That was cool. It was a great little evening. Mer and I are very fond of our colleagues – we work with good people.

On Thursday, we went to a local reception for a recently married couple. Art McMahon used to teach at CVCA, but for several years he has been at a school in Haiti. While there, he met a young and amazing Haitian woman named Miquette. She had become convinced that hope for Haitian children was in education, so she started a program called TeacHaiti, which tries to help children get schooling. That evolved into opening a school, and then expanded again to helping feed the children once a day at school so that they could focus on learning. Art and Miquette were married in Haiti back in October, but they wanted to have a reception here in Ohio, where Art is from.

We only got to see Art and Miquette briefly, as could be expected in a room full of people who were there to see them and wish them well. They are a handsome couple, and they are doing a lot of good in Haiti. In addition to seeing Art and Miquette, we got to see a ton of CVCA folks. We saw Dave and Chrissy and Tyler again, and Mer had a great conversation with some students whom she taught in her first years at CVCA – they are now in their mid-twenties and married and have good career jobs. They thanked Mer for teaching them how to write well, since they either write a lot in their jobs or get complimented on their writing. I’m always happy when Mer gets good feedback on her work, since she pours herself in to her job so much.

We got to see some parents of former students, and some former colleagues, and Mer got to see a few classmates from her time at CVCA. It was sort of a multigenerational reunion, and it was good to see so many people.

On a fun note, a few months ago one of Mer’s former students had gone to Jordan for a semester abroad. She brought back a brightly-colored belly-dancing belt/scarf for Mer, and it is covered in small metal disks that catch the light and jingle together when she walks. It is a fun little item. and Mer wore it over a basic black dress to the party. It was much commented on, and also helped me keep track of where she was in the room.

Last Tuesday we had a fun time. In January of last year, when we took students to London for J-term, one of the plays we got to see was a World War I play about a teenager and his horse, and the play was called War Horse. Steven Spielberg made the book/play into a film, and Mer and I came up with the idea to use the film as a reunion. We invited all the London students, and on Tuesday we headed to a theater in Macedonia, just north of our home. We had six of the thirteen students show up for the film, and it was great fun to see them together again.

The film was quite good. Spielberg made some changes to the story, but nothing that detracted from the experience. In fact, the small changes made for some good discussions among the eight of us after the movie was over. Mer and I were invited to go out for coffee/hot chocolate with three of our former students, so we went along with that, and had a good time visiting for about forty-five minutes.

As far as we could remember, the film made these changes from the play:
– The film made the brothers into landlord and tenant farmer.
– The film added a grandfather, instead of a mother, for the French girl who fell in love with the horses.
– The film added two German soldiers in place of part of the role that the nice German officer played in the play.
– The nice German officer of the play became a German sergeant who had a much smaller role in the play.
– The bet between the brothers in the play was if the horse could plow a set distance; in the film the horse had to plow the whole field.
– The play used French and German with no translation; the film just used English with accents.

Both the film and play are worth seeing, but Mer and I thought the play was more magical because of the full-sized puppets.