City Life.Big time.
Coffee shops that aren't Starbucks. With live bands on weekends and college students and bulletin boards with concert flyers, roomate-wanted ads, business cards from all walks of life.
Botanical Gardens.
Jazz & Blues clubs.
Museums.
Concerts. Theatre. From Cirque Du Soleil to Stomp to Phantom of the Opera to John Mayer to Disney on Ice to Cher (or is it Sher? I can never remember).
The hustle and bustle of a busy downtown. Businessmen/women in their power suits, hotel staff, public transit, valet parking, deli's, restaurants, honking horns.
Dog parks.
The hospital where Owen was born. The antique market. The fish ladder. Labor Days at the Grand Haven Pier.Beautiful city parks that you can see the skyline from as you stroll along the river.
Diverse foods. Diverse neighborhoods. Gyros from PitaHouse, shopping in East-town.
College students everywhere. Colleges everywhere - 6 of them that I can think of off the top of my head. Life and vibrancy.
Cornerstone Volleyball Games, Basketball Games, Griffins Hockey Games.
Heritage Hill, Mars Hill, Ada Bible Church, Celebration on the Grand, city-wide festivals downtown, weekends on the beach at Lake Michigan, drinks at the B.O.B., Canal Street Brewing Company, Meijer, Purple East, Tapas Bistro, The Children's Museum. Beautiful architecture, old stone churches, wineries and the Amway Grand Plaza.
Art fairs, low-crime, sprawling suburbs, good schools, gorgeous autumns, a beautiful city with the perfect mix of sprawling countryside surrounding it - with farms, farmer's markets, horseback riding, state parks, and the beach just minutes outside the city.I miss home. I miss Grand Rapids.
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14 comments:
Sounds like an amazing place. No wonder you miss it.
TWL..It pretty much is... Big city conveniences without all the big city problems..
Tammi & Steve-o.. We (and GR) miss you too.
Things Tammi missed: apple farms in the fall, cherry picking around 4th of July, walks on the trail, fishing off the dam in Rockford, hot dogs @ Yesterdog... just to name a few more
Rob
one more thing...
you need an updated skyline pic with the new 24 floor JW Marriott hotel in it...
Here you go...
http://michpics.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/connecting-the-dots-on-the-grand-rapids-skyline/
Thanks.
That just makes it worse.
:)
It's not the 4th of July if you aren't at the Ford Museum....
suddenly rather homesick myself.
I just don't get "you Northerners" (I'm from the Midwest so I can say that :0) )
I visited Chicago a couple of years back in JUNE and it was freezing! Yeah, the beach was pretty but how do you SWIM in that freezing water?!? Do you or is it just for looks?
I can honestly say that I don't miss Kansas City at all. It's not a very well-run city. I LOVE Huntsville! All the offerings of a big city, in smaller form. We were recently named #1 Small City of the Future--woohoo!
I know--you want your kids to know "where they came from" and that's important.
I'll email you today. Can't wait, can ya'?!?
I just recently discovered that a coffee house/bookstore about five minutes away from our house has live music almost every night.
Gerald thinks it's awful music but what does he know? I've only been once...by myself. I need someone to come visit and GO WITH ME!
We could go downtown also, which is only about ten minutes, and visit all the coffee houses and more! If you don't come soon, I'll have to find a new, cool friend :0)
Oh yeah, I forgot one thing...I loved Chi-town, it was awesome; I'll have to put GR on my list of vacation cities for us to visit.
Cool.
we've been to stomp and Cirque....its a New York State of mind......
you're making everyone blue...you.
talk to you later.
doc
I will make you a deal. I will allow you to move back to Grand Rapids as long as you take us with you. Cause you just made it sound absoutely amazing... so now thats where I want to live.
So let me know when to pack!
AL- deal. Communal living is totally "in".
If you can just overcome the 5 months of winter, you're golden.
Although I DID leave out all the winter activities...tubing, sledding, skiing, cross-country skiing, a city (or a countryside) blanketed in pure white snow.....
That's just to make you feel good when you have to start your car 20 minutes before you leave to defrost it and your hands are never really warm for about 2 months.
Grand Rapids misses you too!! (at least, John and I do :-))
after living in Houston and Chicago the past 6 years Fayetteville is going to start feeling that way... but there's good and bad in both I guess. Nice blogs and pics (your kids are cute)
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