Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

Tuesday night, Jose and I headed to downtown Detroit to watch the Tigers take on my hometown team, the Mariners. It was a fun outing and we enjoyed seeing the ballpark, enjoying the great weather (it's around 75 everyday here), and of course having a hotdog. I love hotdogs...I could write a whole post on that, but I'll spare you.

Jose sporting his new Detroit hat.

The outfield of the stadium opens right up to downtown. Gives a pretty cool view from inside. Especially because lots of the buildings are really old and ornate.

Life in Michigan

We've been running around so much lately I haven't even really gotten to tell you all a little bit about Michigan. It has been an adventure, that's for sure, and fun to get a chance to sort of "try on" a city. Here's the real shocker....we really like it! Who ever thought I'd like living in Detroit?! It is really beautiful (they don't call it the Land-O-Lakes for nothing!), the weather is great (70-80 everyday), the suburbs are really nice, and the people are so friendly. It's also so close to many major cities and we are hoping to get out and explore a little for the rest of the summer.

Every city/area has its own little quirks. Here are some of the most interesting things we've found while living here.

1. The state of Michigan is shaped like a left hand (see above map). People actually use this as a reference! They say, "I'm from where the ring finger and the pinky finger meet." Or they will actually hold up their hand and point! I've heard they make Michigan oven mitts...I may have to find myself one.

2. If you want to turn left at a stoplight, you actually have to turn right. What?! Crazy. They call it "The Michigan Left". You turn right, then in about 1/4 mile on the left lane there is a special U-turn lane where you finally get to go the direction you want. Maybe the above diagram will help. It doubles the amount of stoplights needed and you actually have to wait 3 times sometimes. Jose and I are NOT fans.

3. They take construction workers VERY seriously here. Everywhere on the freeways and streets there are signs saying that if you kill/injure a worker you will pay a $7,500 fine AND serve 15 years in prison! They are not joking around.

4. People are really aggressive drivers and they drive really fast. The speed limits are really high here:70-80 in major highways in the city. It's taken a little getting used to. Hard to keep up with the traffic when you have no idea where you are going! But we've adjusted.

5. We live NORTH of Canada. Eh? Yes, we actually do (you can check me on the map above). Did you know that Detroit and Canada (Windsor) pretty much touch? There is even a chunnel to go back and forth. I think we are the few cities in the continental US that is actually North of Canada. Pretty cool.

6. Pop cans are worth $.10 each! And the crazy part is people actually collect them. They have deposit machines at the front of every store and it gives you money. I think $.10 is a lot. I've been saving mine. I got a 12 pack of diet coke on sale the other day for $2.00 and with the cans that will be like paying $.06 per can. They are practically paying me to drink it! And everyone (I mean everyone) actually does it. That's the weird part. But I guess it's very green, so good work MI.

7. If you pay for you gas with a credit card you have to pay more per gallon. Or as Jose says, they give you a discount for paying cash. Definitely shows the difference in our personalities on how we see that! I think it's a penalty and he thinks it's a discount! Tomato...tomatoe...pay in cash.

I'm sure we'll find out many interesting things in our remaining month here. Who knows...maybe next year this will be our real home.

Seattle

This weekend almost the entire Pugh Crew got together in Seattle. Sadly, Jose couldn't make it as well as Melly and kids. But, we certainly enjoyed being home and saying:

WELCOME HOME MOM & DAD!

We're so excited to have my parents home from their 3 mission for our Church. We're looking forward to many more family events where we can all be together again. While in Seattle we visited with old friends, had some Burgermaster, ate baby doughnuts from Pike Place Market, and mostly just spent time with all the cute cousins and each other. We even had a wonderful 'adults only' dinner. There was needless to say lots of laughing and we were sad to see it end.

I wasn't very good about taking pictures. I think quite a few of them ended up on other peoples cameras, but here's a few!

Laura and Sammy - what a cute pair!

Trevor's big crack on the Pinata.

The madness that occurs moments later when candy is everywhere.

Princess Baby (aka Abby) enjoying a sucker.

Alex showing off his bag of treats.

How our "really cheap" Mexican trip really cost us!

I forgot to mention above about our sad loss in Mexico....Jose's Wedding ring! It has always been a little too big (we already sized it once!) and when he went swimming in the ocean a big wave just took it away and it was gone. : ( The waves were pretty big that day so there was no hope.

I've made up overly fantasized/romantisized stories in my mind about a sweet poor little Mexican boy who stumbles on Jose's ring years from now on the beach and can finally propose to the love of his life with it. But that's just so I can sleep at night.

And let's be honest, we're just glad it was his ring and not mine! But these pictures are now all we have left of his symbol of our love.

So for now, Jose's sporting a naked left ring finger like he's single again. Should I be worried that I'm leaving and going to Seattle without him this weekend?

Cancun

We had a happy surprise upon our arrival here in Detroit that Jose would have a week off from his internship while the Factories close for summer shutdown. So we decided we wanted to get out of town and away from our tiny apartment (ugh!). So we decided Cancun was just the ticket! We were there for 5 days and had a GREAT time. We were a little worried when we arrived and it was pouring rain, but the weather quickly improved and we had a fabulous time! There was sightseeing and sunning (or shading in my case!) and lots of wonderful Mexican food. We certainly miss that in MI!

This was the view out of our hotel room. Isn't the water just amazingly blue? And it was so warm!

Here were are at the main temple at Chichen Itza, the temple of Kulkulkan. What an amazing place! All of the ruins were so neat and it really gave you an idea of what things were like thousands of years ago. We decided to go ourselves (instead of on one of the many tour groups offered by the hotels) and it was such a fun adventure and we really got the more Mexican experience. I love traveling in Mexico with a Mexican! Jose always finds us the really good food from the locals and of course the "mexican discount".
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This was one of the more intricately carved buildings at Chichen. The motifs were beautiful. It's really interesting how many structures there are, and how many are still uncovered. There were archaeologists digging all over the miles of the property uncovering new things everyday. Most of Mexico is said to be that way. It is just so expensive and there are so many they can't afford to uncover all of them. Wouldn't you just love to go on a dig? I would!

A view of the main temple with a smaller one in the foreground. The main one is just massive (it's hard to get the scale). I was really bummed that they stop let the general public climb it and go inside about 3-4 years ago when it became one of the 7 modern wonders. The stairs are pretty steep and with how hot it is there, I'm sure it was a bit dangerous. I told Jose that he needs to make a friend there with an archaeologist or someone important so that I can get the real tour before I die. I'm absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. We'll see if Jose can make that happen for me in the next 50+ years!

Jose of course had to hit up the golf course! Good shot, huh! Luckily he didn't run into any crocodiles or critters bigger than an iguana. Apparently they have quite the wildlife on this course (as my brother Brandon learned) and the club staff warned.

And I had to include this because it is SO Mexico. I took this picture in downtown Cancun one afternoon. What is it you ask? It is a person dressed in a bobble-headed Doctor costume dancing around to music in front of a Dr.'s office as an advertisement. You can see the pink banner to the right. Because that's the Dr. I want to visit when I'm sick, how about you? Seriously, do they think that works? I prefer taking my doctor incredibly seriously, not as a cartoon character.

And for those of you who were worried, we have no swine flu. The locals said they haven't ever had a problem down in that part of Mexico but it has nearly killed the local economy (tourism). We were happy to do our part. : )

The Great American Roadtrip!

I know we've already been here in Michigan for a few weeks now, but I thought I'd keep playing catch-up and post some pictures from our cross country drive out here. The total route took us about 35 hours. We we passed through: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and then finally to Michigan. We've sure been a lot of places this year. I think I could claim that I know am a professional traveler! Here are some highlights!

It's always a highlight to drive in to Texas! We felt right back at home and had a good time visiting with Jose's family and seeing a few friends. There were a lot more things we wanted to do, but with such a long way to go it was hard to stop for too long.

We certainly enjoyed Memphis and ate here at BB King's Blues Club and had some amazing bbq and live music. What a fun place. We'd love to go back and try many more bbq joints in town!

And we of course had to visit Graceland. Here's Jose & I in front of the mansion. Jose is a big lover of Oldie's music and who doesn't love the King? It was actually very cool and we really had fun checking out the house, grounds, and seeing lots of interesting memorabilia like cars, awards, jets, jumpsuits, etc. Definitely check it out if you're in Memphis. Sadly the second floor of the house is closed to tourists (where Elvis' bedroom was) but we really had fun overall.

And here is Elvis' grave. There were so many flowers and things that had been put out for him. Apparently people send things from all over the world and they put everything out until it starts to show signs of wear. I couldn't help but wonder since Michael Jackson died if they are going to do the same sort of thing at Neverland. But there's no way it would be as cool as Elvis' house. What a cool retro/glam/rockstar/over the top style he had!

I think Leonard's may have been Jose's highlight of the trip. It was a real local type of bbq joint. It is all you can eat buffet everyday and de-lish! It was a fun way to get to have a little bit of everything without missing out on anything. (Because what if Jose and I missed out on food?! - tragedy!)

And finally here's a shot of good old downtown Detroit. On the left side of the bridge you can see Windsor, Canada. Crazy that they are so close, eh? There's even an underwater tunnel that connects them. I'll let you know how that is when we try it in a few weeks. And, Detroit is not nearly so bad as everyone says. It gets a terrible wrap!