Can You Pick Up An Accent In 48 Hours?

I'm back from my whirlwind tour of Michigan. And by whirlwind tour I mean a 3 hour lay-over in Detroit, followed by a 45-minute drive from Grand Rapids to Grand Haven. (Side note that will expose me as a total geek/fangirl: When I found out years ago that Gillian Anderson, AKA the Real Scully, had lived in Grand Rapids and had family there, I was ecstatic and wondered if we were not distantly related. I know, obssess much, but I was having an identity crisis at the time.) I had great fun seeing most of the family and all the cute children my cousins are producing. Also, my cousin, The Nepalese Expert, and I bonded over a) being single and near 30 and b) men with British/Irish/Scottish accents, specifically Daniel Craig and Gerard Butler. It was great fun and here are some pictures from the weekend for your viewing pleasure.

Here are Mime and Mrs. Mime showing their work ethic at the Dutch Village in Holland, Michigan. There is a random little museum/tourist attraction in Holland that highlights how the Dutch lived a couple hundred years ago. Anyway, they make Delft-style items and you can buy wooden shoes, although I don't know why you would want them. They are heavy and seem hard to maneuver.

Here are some cute ducklings in a fountain in Holland. The ducks run wild and I'm sure become a nuisance at some point, but they are cute here. The village also had baby goats you could walk and Shetland ponies, but none of them were ready for a photo-op, so I had to settle for the ducks.

Here are my dad, Mime, and Mrs. Mime enjoying a little role reversal. Mime looks especially thrilled.

Here is the pier on Lake Michigan. Grand Haven is on the coast of Lake Michigan and has a really lovely beach. There is a long boardwalk and you can walk right to the end of the pier, which has always been one of my favorite things to do when we visit Grand Haven. My dad and Aunt Lo are the two walkers ahead of me. Mime and Mrs. Mime dropped from exhaustion some time earlier.

Here is a picture from the end of the pier looking back. You can see that it is a long walk, but what you can't see is how lovely the beach area is. I got many a 3rd degree sunburn visiting this beach as a child. Which is why I'm now slightly paranoid about skin cancer and wear sunscreen to drive to work.

Grand Haven is known as Coast Guard City, USA and every year, the first weekend in August, there is a huge Coast Guard Festival with visiting ships, shows, a parade, a carnival and fireworks. The family reunion is always planned to coincide with the Coast Guard Festival, to give people an added incentive for coming. Most of my Dad's family lives in Michigan or Wisconsin and we are the black sheep of the family for living west of the Rocky Mountains.

The Coast Guard Festival brings lots of boat enthusiasts and this is a pic of a huge sailboat you can reserve passage on and enjoy an evening of dining and sailing. Which sounded awesome, since from a distance it looks rather like something from Pirates of the Caribbean, especially if you went with someone who looked like Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom.

Finally, here are few pictures of the fireworks show. I must say, it was impressive. These pictures don't do it justice, partially because my camera was being difficult and I got a lot of pictures of blurry streaks of light and partly because I only remembered to take pictures during the less amazing moments. But enjoy them all the same!

All-in-all, the weekend was great. The only downside was how many hours I spent in an airplane or an airport over the four days of the trip. Also, I spent so much time with my family that I picked up the Midwest accent. I endured no end of mocking from Mime and Mrs. Mime about the way I said 'coffee' in the Seattle airport yesterday. Until my brother said 'Costco' today, with the same flattened 'o' sound. And so Mrs. Mime and I mocked him. But seriously, was it immersion or some sort of genetic memory that brought on this Midwest accent?