Well, we're back.

Surprisingly enough, Grand Rapids was a nice little city. There was plenty to do in terms of restaurants and bars and whatnot. We got there super late on Monday night and went right to sleep after checking in at the hotel.

The next morning, we got up, had our complimentary continental breakfast and headed over to the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park to see the Butterflies are Blooming exhibit. That was cool...the gardens are in this enormous greenhouse, and they had hundreds of butterflies in there...everywhere you looked, there was a different butterfly fluttering in your face, practically. It was really cool. We walked around and looked at the butterflies and the plants they had there, and then we went outside to the sculpture park and walked around there for a while, even though it was pretty cold.

We finished up and headed out to lunch. After lunch, we went and took advantage of the hot tub and indoor pool at the hotel. We were the only ones using the pool and hot tub during the entire hour and a half or so that we were down there. It was nice.

We took a nap and then decided to head to a restaurant in downtown Grand Rapids next to the Van Andel Arena (where the Arena League's Rampage play) called 48 West. We got there and we were the only people there...it was about 6pm on Tuesday, and we expected the crowd to be thin, but not inexistent. But that's OK, as it gave us a nice, quiet meal. We both had the "house specialty," boisin stuffed filet mignon, which was fantastic and well worth the money.

We asked the waitress where we could go to just hang out and have a drink or two, and she suggested a place we kind of were leaning toward in the hotel's magazine called Bar Divani. It was a wine bar/lounge with an enormous selection of wines and beers, just around the corner from the restaurant. We decided to check it out. We sat in some nice comfy chairs and talked for a couple hours while she had a raspberry/chocolate martini and I had two glasses of wine...one was a sauvignon blanc (my favorite) and the other was an Alsace which was pretty good (we each had a glass of Pinot Grigio--her favorite--at dinner, so I wanted to try a different one for the third glass).

We wanted to go to a club after that, but it being Tuesday, the one club nearby was closed, and the other one that the waiter suggested was just too far away, and I didn't feel like driving to find out it was closed. So we went back to the hotel (it was late anyway), went to sleep, got up and came back yesterday afternoon.

I had my introductory meeting for the part-time gig yesterday...seems like it'll be OK, although I wonder how much it's gonna conflict with any full-time gig I try to nail down, given that already two Wednesdays in a row I have to be there earlier than normal. That worries me a bit. But, the kids that I'll be supervising don't seem to be punks, and that's a good thing...I don't want to deal with punks if I don't have to. But we shall see, I suppose.

Now I have to go get my dog back from Bolingbrook...it's such a nice day too...maybe I'll stay out there a bit and tidy up the garden a little more...or something. We'll see. I actually have some editing I need to do so I can drop it off tomorrow. So I'm a bit on the busy side, but that's the way it goes, I guess. Gina's just as busy though, since report cards are due next week for her. Hopefully we can enjoy the nice weather one of these days around here. :)

Oh yeah, and lots of new search engine queries over there...a barrage, if you will.