Our trip to Michigan was brief yet filled with activity. We were in town for my cousin’s wedding, so there was definitely a lot of visiting with family involved! Living in Florida, we don’t get to see all of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents very often, so it is always enjoyable to spend some quality time together!
My parents, Justin, and I were driving in from Chicago, and we picked up my brother at the Grand Rapids airport on Friday afternoon. Then, it was straight to a restaurant for some much needed food! My mom had looked around for a local lunch joint that was popular, and she came up with Marie Catrib’s. Well, I can tell you right now: this place was hopping!!!! We had a bit of a wait to sit down at our table, but once we ordered we were really impressed with the food that was presented. The portions were enormous, and the variety of offerings on the menu was well suited for many different dietary needs. Justin had the Chicken Cranberry: grilled chicken breast with provolone and cream cheese, fresh spinach, and cranberry sauce:
I had a bowl of the tomato basil quinoa soup (why haven’t I put quinoa in my soup before?!?! I need to do this at home), and a split a side of seasoned potatoes with my mom (yum!):
My dad had a Chicken Reuben:
And my brother took the cake for most intimidating order: the Husky-Varna. It is homemade stuffed meatloaf made with local beef and pork, stuffed with cheese, roasted red pepper and spices and served open-face with provolone cheese and marinara sauce on grilled bread. AND it is served with a side of smashed seasoned potatoes. Dang!
Great Harvest. Oh, how I miss this place. When we lived in Wisconsin and Michigan, my mom would get bread from Great Harvest, and I would always want to tag along to get a sample. They slice you an entire, thick slice of the flavor of your choosing to sample, and it is glorious. Their cinnamon swirl bread is to die for…and this time, we picked up their PUMPKIN cinnamon swirl bread! Be still, my heart.
We got some quality time to catch up with the relatives…and also to get a few puppy snuggles from my grandparents’ cockapoo – Maggie! Isn’t she adorable?!?!
After a day filled with wedding celebrations on Saturday, before we returned to Florida on Sunday night, we spent the day in downtown Grand Rapids checking out ArtPrize. ArtPrize is the world’s largest art competition, and it is open to ANYONE over the age 18. 162 venues around downtown Grand Rapids were host to the submitted art, and it was all open to the public. You simply stroll around the city and enjoy the art pieces (both inside and outside of buildings). There was so much to see, and we only got to view a fraction of the total entries…but it was amazing to witness! We did happen to see a number of the top 10 winners in the end…like “Life in Wood” – a fur seal carved from a single black walnut log. The artist has spent approximately 4,000 hours of carving on the piece. The artist actually invited people to touch this piece so that you could fully appreciate the detail…it was absolutely amazing (and won 6th place)!!!
There was a heavy metal rock band made from recycled parts and found objects…the little monsters that surrounded the band as the “crowd” were so cute and funny!
And another really amazing piece was The Dragon – a holographic structure of a dragon created from gold buttons. Seriously – how cool is that?
…and that wraps up our adventures in Michigan!
Have you visited the Grand Rapids, Michigan area before?
OK – Justin’s sandwich sounds amazing! Art festival looked really neat too! I am glad you had such a great trip.
Wow, that’s so cool – looks like a fantastic trip! And that soup sounds amazing!!
I definitely think I need to attempt recreating it at home!
My best friend lives in Grand Rapids and I get up there twice a year for work. We usually make Marie Catrib’s a stop, but most recently tried the Electric Cheetah (SOO amazing)
Love visiting GR so it was fun to see these pictures!
I love the name Electric Cheetah! Haha!