Around Ann Arbor

   Although Michael and I spent 73 days in Michigan last winter because of Emma needing surgery, it was also fun getting to "live" somewhere else for a while and I wanted to post that perspective of it. We think a lot about our time in Michigan and the friends (nurses) that we made. We were super lucky to be able to stay at the Ronald McDonald House the whole time, which was right across the street from the hospital. Michael said he always liked that I held tight onto his arm while we walked to and from the hospital and also around Downtown Ann Arbor. Most of the time we stayed nearby the hospital, but a few times we took an Uber to get to places that were too far to walk. The first or second day we got a ride (not free) to Meijer (like a Walmart) and Kohl's for food and warmer clothes. Below are a couple of the pictures I took from the window as we were being driven around town.

  At Kohl's Michael splurged on an insulated jacket and I got my boots on clearance for $25. I preferred to layer my clothes instead of spending another $150 on my own jacket. I often wore two tank tops, a long sleeve shirt, a long jean shirt, a gray sweater, long exercise pants under my jeans, long knee socks, a scarf, my fuzzy hat, and my black peacoat that I got from Ross a few years ago.. And I was still cold!! :) However, this often resulted in me ripping half of the layers off as we walked down the hallway towards Emma's PICU room! But I was surprised that after a few weeks how I began to get adjusted to the temperature. Before Michigan I never would have wanted to walk a mile to a store and back, except that one time in Birmingham, Alabama after it snowed I did, just so I could "brag" that I had done it. Now it's old news and 25 degrees sometimes seemed "warm" enough to walk to CVS to print pictures to make scrapbook cards!

  In the picture of me above, I am not holding up peace signs. That is me documenting that I survived walking around town when it was 22 degrees! The picture with the tiny snowmobile is the same area, but on another day when it was warmer. Maybe on the warmest day (January 11th?) at 53 degrees!! I let everyone know that I only needed to wear one pair of pants that day and one nurses commented that she noticed she could see my knee through my ripped jeans instead of the purple yoga pants that were usually underneath.
  Below you will also find comparison photos because I thought it was interesting and pretty to see the difference between how "a scene" looked covered in snow versus after the snow had melted. Also a reminder- I grew up in Florida, so I had not seen snow many times in my life and when I did it was either in Atlanta or Birmingham. That's another reason why I took so many pictures.

  Using the Maps and Yelp apps I found a place called Fred's that sold smoothie bowls. There is a place near our house in Orlando called TruNature that sells smoothie bowls (a smoothie with fresh fruit and granola on top) so I wanted to try the one in Ann Arbor. They only had three choices, unlike the 12 choices TrueNature has, not including the 12 smoothies and 12 juice flavors there! (Can you tell I like that place a lot?) Fred's was okay. I didn't finish my bowl, but that place was so beautiful. It was on the corner so it had so much natural lighting and pretty little plants, with floor to ceiling windows!!

    While we were there I told Michael that I wanted to mostly eat at places we had never been to before. It's more fun that way! Most mornings we ate bagels that we got from Meijer or ordered the filling hospital meals for $4. We definitely didn't go out to eat every day! A couple times we went to a "regular" place like Chili's, Panera, and Texas Roadhouse, but we also asked the nurses for suggestions, as well as Michael's older brother and his wife who lived near Ann Arbor for four or five years. The photo below with the M on the window was at Pizza House. We heard a lot of good things about that place and the food was good, but the bill wasn't! :o

 My beloved CVS on the other side of the road! :)

   On the day that it was a toasty 53 degrees Michael and I walked about twice as far as we normally did. There were a few cutesy shops in the Kerrytown area that I wanted to check out and walk around in. which we did, and that was also where the Zingerman's Deli and their Next Door bakery was. We got an Uber to Zingerman's Roadhouse restaurant one night because everyone said it was so good, but we preferred the deli!

   Michael didn't even use his jacket on the 53 degree day!! That's how much he loves the cold.
I guess one day Michael and I were talking about Harry Potter and how we like the movies. Maybe when we were telling the story of how we met and fell in love to one of the nurses? The 6th Harry Potter movie was what we were watching in theaters -dressed up at midnight- when we held hands for the first time! Well then she was telling us about how the Law Quad of the University of Michigan looks sort of like Hogwarts and said that the producers or location scouts thought about using that location for the movie before building their own sets in London. So one day we checked that out!

   One afternoon we saw a commercial for Olive Garden on TV and it sounded so good, so we spontaneously decided to eat there for dinner. Michael looked it up and found the closest one was three miles away. I asked how much it would be for an Uber, but he suggested that we walk there! I kept wanting to turn back around or having an Uber meet us where we were because it was so cold, but Michael convinced me to keep going. However, halfway there Michael told me that he thought 3 miles would only take us 30 minutes to get there!? But I estimated at least three times as long, and was right. Usually in the Florida summer I walk a mile in 18 minutes, but when it is freezing outside and I am trying not to slip on ice on the sidewalk, I walk a whole lot slower. Eventually we saw the sign for Olive Garden and it was beautiful. And then after all my talk about how cold it was I still said, "We have to get a picture before going inside!" A great memory to have though.

   I feel that it is important to mention that we did not leave the hospital every day. We definitely did not leave on surgery days and stayed with Emma a lot more the first couple of weeks. But as we became more familiar and comfortable with the doctors and nurses, we felt better about leaving for an hour or two at a time or sometimes we would go back to the Ronald McDonald House and take naps. I would say more of our "exploring" days were in January and February. January was when she was kept sedated and on paralytics to help her heal more easily, so we weren't even really allowed to touch her much. So distracting ourselves was helpful. There were many "bad days" like when she needed chest tubes put in after her lung collapsed twice, so we stayed by her side those days too. Days where a lot of specialists came to meet with us and tell us important things. Michael is big into all of the Star Wars movies and The Last Jedi came out in theaters last December so I assumed we would go see it. But Michael didn't want to be too far away from Emma for too long in case one of the doctors called us in the middle of it. He said he would be too worried about her to enjoy the movie, so we finally watched that at home a few months ago. :)
   I also think a lot about how I would follow along to yoga videos back in our room at night and listen to guided meditations on various apps for 20 minutes while lying in bed. I would listen and dance to Taylor Swift's most recent album while getting dressed and ready in the mornings. I feel stressed about less important things a lot of the time now, but thinking about Michigan, we have such fond memories. Emma is still alive because of that surgery! She was passing out up to five times a day- for months!!- before we got there. Obviously there were days in Michigan that involved a lot of medical/Emma stress and crying on my part, but we stayed so positive. There were only two or three "bad days" out of the 73 we were there! Maybe I liked not having to go to work, but still getting paid using vacation time, knowing I still had a job when I got back. It's fun exploring new places, meeting different people, and I was scrapbooking a lot. I have noticed over the years that the more time Michael and I are able to spend together, the stronger our marriage gets, so being together for 72 days (he flew back home for one day in January) made our marriage really strong, and that makes life easier and really great!! ♡♥♡