One of the many reasons I like hosting exchange students is because they definitely make life more interesting.  Their youthful spirit and thirst for adventure is contagious.  I had the pleasure of capturing this some of this excitement at The Color Run in Ypsilanti last Saturday. I played paparazzi for our German daughter, Jule and her Danish friend Therese.  It was a rather cool and gray morning but that didn’t curb the enthusiasm of .

Steve & I made our way down to Ann Arbor Sunday afternoon to experience the art-full parade of puppets make their way down Main Street. Festifools brings students and community volunteers together to create unique public art that is free and accessible to everyone. Specifically, they make huge-mongous papier-mâché puppets and march them around in early April. The creativity was quite impressive and the environment oh-so-whimsical. Not surprising that mother earth and happy hippie .

I love this growing trend of yarn bombing.  There’s just something delightful about seeing trees, parking meters & telephone poles covered in colorful yarn.  So it’s no surprise that I couldn’t help but to smile when I spotted these fanciful trees when I was in Birmingham last weekend. I do believe this is some of the fanciest yarn bombing I’ve seen.  I love how the artist used zip ties for the bug antennae. I .

Before the summer slips away, Steve & I wanted to squeeze in a little road trip & decided on the New Jersey coast.  It’s just a day’s drive away & is full of festive beach towns & shopping areas… a perfect combination for my exploring soul. Our first stop was Ocean City. I don’t know what it is about amusement rides paired with beaches that makes me happy… but they do. I’m also a .

It’s hard to believe our German exchange student, Tessa is heading back home in just a few days.  We couldn’t let her leave Michigan without a little tour up north so we hopped on I-75 until we hit the bridge and took in all the beauty the mitten is famous for.  One way I captured our adventure is with a little help from instagram.  If you’re also addicted to this photo app, you can .

It was about a month ago when I cleared 5 days from my normal routine & headed to St. Paul to partake in the 2nd annual Creative Connection.  This fantastic conference is all about women, passion & business and is the brain child of Jo Packham, creator & editor in chief of the magazine Where Women Create. The time away was just what I needed and gave me a super-charged dose of inspiration (so .