Our Valley of Happiness

This year My sweetheart received a handmade card. The card had an opening at the front which will display a photo, and once you open the card, the photo is replaced by a second photo. Inside of the card: The cake for the year was black forest.

Our plans for the second day at glacier was to drive the 'Going to the sun road', and hike the HighLine trail. Going to the sun road is 50 mile very scenic drive through the mountains. It can be accessed from the east entrance at St Mary or the west entrance at West Glacier. We chose St mary, thinking we could watch the sunrise over St Mary lake when we start the day. The scenic road can be done by park's free shuttle system too. They are free and make stops at all attraction points along the route. Since we had to reach the other side of the mountain, we took our car.  The highest point on the route is Logan Pass which is home to two very beautiful and breathtaking trails, Hidden Lake trail and HighLine trail. The 12 mile HighLine trail is carved through the Garden Wall mountain ranges, you walk through a very narrow trail which is made right through the mountain. Though a lil scary this is a highlight of Glacier National Park.They also have a hand rail hung to the m...

Glaciers are formed by the repeated snowfalls in winter, and snow melts in summer. When snow accumulates by each passing snow fall, the snow becomes ice and heavy. This causes the mass of ice+snow to move around shaping and corroding the rocks. For this reason the mountains surrounding the glaciers will have very unique shapes, steep drop off points and can have sharp edges. Sad thing though, as temperature increases by global warming, the snow gets time to melt away and glaciers will slowly disappear. I read that, glacier national park had so many glaciers,which now dont even exist.

Our day started really early by 5:40 AM. We directly walked to yellowstone lake to watch the sunrise. We spent some time there as the sun rose and painted the mountains. Serene.

We were planning for this yellowstone trip for so long. Since we were staying at Oregon for an year, and never were able to make it to Yellowstone it was a real regret all this while. But this time everything got lined up so good, and we were off to Yellowstone within a week.

Bright blue beaches surrounded by golden sand dunes; Warm water surrounded by sunny hot dunes; Sleeping bear dunes national lakeshore is a real treat. Various types of activities await you there. Swim in the lake, climb the dunes,scenic drive, or  hike the forest enjoying the stunning views of Lake of Michigan/Glen Lake. We reached the park by 11 am on 9th July. It was a lil tough to find the visitor center, apart from that the whole trip was a blast. Our plan was to hike empire bluff trail, pyramid point trail and climb the 150ft 'dune climb'. We had to change our plans as the day progressed and it turned out to be one of the best weekends ever, in MI.

Ludington Statepark: Day2 Our day 2 at the park was reserved for hiking the park. There are many trails which you can explore among which we selected the Light house trail,Skyline trail and Big sable river trail. Ludington statepark is indeed the best state park of MI including all the activities you can possibly do. You can see so many people parked beside the road towards Lake Michigan. If you park your car and walk to the beach it will feel like its your own private beach!

Ludington Statepark: Day1 Ludington statepark is like a natural amusement park! Its like you visit Acadia in NH. From the moment we entered the park I was in love with the park. I already wanna go back. Its a combination of dunes,trails, river,unique canoe trail, hamlin lake and the might Lake of MI. Statepark is just between the lake of Michigan and hamlin lake,which is connected through sable river. It all are so serene and beautiful. This obviously is the prettiest statepark in MI I have ever been. A view of lake MI.

Lansing river trail is a gorgeous trail through Lansing connecting so many attractions in Lansing. The trail is almost 20 miles long, paved road.  It passes through Potter Parker zoo, Lansing Old town, Hawk Island, Lansing downtown and so many other such things. This weekend we decided to hit the trail near the Lansing city market and visit the Old town. In most of the areas you walk through the side of grand river enjoying the trees, river and the freshness.The trail is very well marked too. How beautiful is it?  

We are blessed with so many trail,parks and lots of serene nature just around us here in MI. Everybody should take time to step out and breath the pure air, and experience the nature for yourself. MI is called 'City of trails', which is absolutely the fact! We started to hawk island after our lunch and it was very sunny and pleasant. You will have to pay a small fee of $3/$5 to enter the park. You will have many things to do in the park starting from hiking to snow tubing.

Muskegon State park is a combination of forest, dunes and lake. There are so many trails inside the park to chose from and we chose Hearty hikers loop and lost lake loop. Hearty hikers loop includes scenic ridge areas where you can overlook the tree canopy and Lake Michigan. Lost lake loop is a trail surrounding 'Lost lake', as the name suggests, a lake lost in the woods! We reached the park by 11:30 on 5/22/2016. We grabbed a map from the park entrance. Since we already had experiences with hiking the dunes we knew it was not going to be easy. So we packed our hammocks, snacks, fruits and enough water for the hike. When you arrive Lake Michigan welcomes you with all its charm. Weather was very good and there were so many people fishing and boating.

I have never flied a kite! Never! Let alone flying one, I have never seen anybody flying kite,well in front of my eyes neither did I ever made a kite! So when we heard about the kite festival in Grand Haven, I couldn't wait to be there. While making the plans we read the reviews about this beautiful trail at 'Rosy mound natural Center'. We decided we will hike/walk the trail first and then go for the festival. It was a comparatively short trail, just around 3 miles. We thought it would be perfect for the day and headed right towards it on 5/21/2016. We reached the nature center by 11'o clock and just the first look on to the trail proved us we were not wrong. It was beautiful trail, very well maintained. I don't know if I can call it a hike, it would be a walk, but rated a lil above medium for its difficulty. The trails consisted of 70% stairs, at some area really steep stairs. But everything about the trail was just so beautiful and fresh.  We started walkin...

When you have a state park just close to your home why would you ever wait? At this point I am completely in love with Michigan and just want to explore everything in here.  My husband and I travel a lot, but never have done a planned hiking. So i thought this would be it, close to home and around 8 miles. That would be perfect for a start. So we picked a date, and decided to start early morning on 05/07/16.I was so excited for our first hiking trip, but just two days before our hike, the weather forecast changed for Saturday, and showed heavy thunderstorm.I thought we will have to postpone and so we didnt do any preparations and slept really late on Friday. Next day morning to our surprise the weather changed to Sunny with clouds. We couldnt wait, I marinated some chicken and put it in the oven quickly. We made plans on which trail to take and what all to carry. After all these mess, we started by 10:30 from home.

This was one of the best birthday i could ever do i believe. I started planning for this months back and was so excited the days before his birthday. I planned a grand treasure hunt with 12 gifts(since 12th is his birthday) and added clues. The grand prize was the lemon curd cake i baked and he had an amazing time :D One of the sample clues😀 the answer is supposed to be - Television The wine was homemade and i picked a custom label. We are planning to open the bottle on our 10th year anniversary <3 Some of the goods which he found ;)

Done at an artbarn by my hubby and me. We had great time making it :)

The trip to pikes peak was a very anticipated one for us. We knew the drive was going to be extremely scary, well at least for me. From the moment we made plans to visit Pikes Peak, I had been watching many images, videos..etc to know the severity of the drive. Each time i saw a videos, i got scared even more. But we still wanted to do it! Pikes Peak is one of the highest summit of rocky mountains range and sits on a height of  14,115 ft.  We had our breakfast and started driving towards pikes peak. More than excitement, i think I was curious to see the road which is so famous for its adventurous nature.The drive towards Pikes peak was absolutely stunning. I think anywhere you drive in CO, its all going to be so awesome.

Well, this is one of the trips which I never want to forget.  CO is absolutely stunning and everybody, if possible, should go and see it for yourself. You would see how mesmerizing it is. You would find it breathtaking and you would wonder about how beautiful God's creations are! We rented a car and started our journey on July4th 2015. From the moment we got out of the airport we started seeing the majestic mountains. A view from the road.

A pair of smocked pillow!

Pillow done with small level of  smocking and fabric flowers! Pillow done in honey comb pattern.

Skewers painted in silver and gloved together on a mirror. Didn't turn out as i hoped, but still worth the time.

This year i had been so busy cooking tons of food for his birthday. I got personalized M&Ms and a watch as a gift. M&M got one of his favorite photos on them ;) And the delicacies: All these were sides of rice.