An Evening with Ben and Suz

Did you guys know Ben is a fantastic guitar player? And we have a lot of the same music tastes, too! It is so fun when Ben pulls out his guitar, puts some music lyrics on the projector screen, and we sing together. Maybe a little Brady Bunch, but that's how we relax :)

See how happy he is?!?!?!?!

Don't stop believ' ! Hold on to that feeeeeeeeeelin........

I love my little Guitar Hero :) 

Some fun in the snow!

Here a few pix of just a couple things we did during our break!

Snowmobiling:

Cross Country Skiing! 

Awkward at first, but this could be my favorite winter activity!

And New Years!

Thousands of people came out to the town center of Traverse City (the cherry capital of the world) to watch a giant cherry drop at midnight! The town had beautiful lights set up everywhere, most of the stores on the block stayed open until midnight, and there was a good live band! 

We bought a ton of glowsticks from Target earlier and spent the drive over cracking them in the car, and Ben tried selling them to the crowd. He made enough $ to cover our investment, then we gave the rest away to kids! Really fun. 

Happy New Year!

Winter in Petoskey!

We had an amazing 2 week holiday! Last year we were in Columbia with my fam for Christmas (before we were even engaged), so we planned early to spend this holiday season with Ben's family. It was crazy:

We flew, drove, and explored all over the midwest! 

12/ 22 - 12/ 24: Milwaukee, WI (Steve and Tamara + girls, Betsy)

12/ 24 - 12/ 26: Rockford, IL (Entire family at Sarah and Danny's)

12/ 26 - 1/ 3: Petoskey, MI (Mom and Dad, Betsy)

As you can see, we spent the most amount of time in Ben's hometown of Petoskey, MI. I was so stupid excited to see the fam and visit his hometown! Everyone who knows Michigan said I was crazy to make my first trip in the winter, but what did they know-- Petoskey is gorgeous any time of year, and I had tons of fun in the snow.

We took so many pictures of our time up there, so I had to condense them to collages to fit everything in! I hope this does it justice!

Showing some love all over that town...

One of the first things we did was take a hike through the snow in one of their downtown parks. It was so beautiful!

Ben and I spent an afternoon driving up to the bridge to the Upper Peninsula, and walked out onto the rocks to search for Petoskey Stones. 

We found one!

Petoskey is a very small, beautiful, classy, laid-back resort town.  Ben's family lives close to the town center, so we had a lot of fun taking random walks into town for some really terrific food, good views, and unique stores.  

Here are some of the town highlights:

One of the really unique things about Petoskey is that the awesome town center (with the really terrific food and unique stores) is across the street from the famous waterfront; an area the town has really beautified on the edge of Lake Michigan. 

Seriously... I am in love with this town!

We had a lot of other fun things we did there, like snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, hiking, New Years party, etc... so I'll try to get those pix up too :)