A Weekend to Celebrate

This was a busy weekend at my lakefront. Besides, Harbor Market, a European style Farmer’s Market that happens every Saturday and in the summer is literally steps away from my house, there was a big yard sale, plus people biking, walking, flying kites, getting married and just enjoying the beautiful weather.

On Saturday morning, my husband and I attended an Open House at the Southport Beach House for CEDAR – the Center for Environmental Education, Development and Applied Research. It was a day-long event promoting the lakefront, the environment and conservation of natural resources. In the evening they had a soiree called Solstice Celebration. You can learn more about CEDAR on their website.

I didn’t get any pictures of any of these events as I had my own big one going on. My husband and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary (which is actually today) with family and friends. It was a wonderful weekend for us, but I cannot just write about my anniversary without tying it into the Great Lakes, for if this blog has a mission statement, it is to tie everything in, one way or another, to the Great Lakes. However, I can easily do that in two ways.

The first is that in the 40 years of our marriage, there are many, many memories of the Great Lakes. An early one that immediately comes to mind is an afternoon walk in the winter of 1969 at a frozen beach on Lake Erie. Michael and I like beaches – and haven’t always cared whether we visit them in summer or winter. Then there was camping on the shores of Lake Superior in the UP and visiting Mackinac Island as young marrieds. As parents, our young children grew up walking the rocks along Lake Michigan and playing on parks along its western shores and camping along the sand dunes on its eastern shores. In recent years, there are memories of driving from one lake to another to visit family and friends. And even though during those 40 years we didn’t always live in sight of a Great Lake, we have always been “Great Lakers.”

The second thing about the lake is that there were people who came to our house for the first time for a celebration brunch on Sunday. We are always proud to open our house to them and extend our hospitality but its especially fun when they say, “Wow. You have a view of the lake. How cool.”

Yes. How cool.

So the local events of the weekend took second place over our personal ones, but in sense they are part of our personal life. They are a part of where and how we live. And I hope to do so for many, many more years with my husband, my best friend, and my fellow “Great Laker.”