Candy Cane Christmas Tree Farm

I know it’s a little bit early, but since our family celebrated thanksgiving two weeks ago we decided to go to the Christmas tree farm and pick out our Christmas tree early. The place that we go to every year is called the Candy Cane Christmas Tree Farm and it is located in Oxford Michigan. This place is the most beautiful Christmas tree farm that I have ever seen. It was voted the number one best Christmas tree farm by WDIV-4s for two years. (Michigan Christmas Tree Association). They have fresh custom wreaths made by award winning wreath makers and they have saws and tree carts, free tree cleaning, wrapping, drilling, and candy canes. Santa visits the farm on the weekends, which is always nice to see all the little kids lined up and excited to meet Santa. We went literally on the opening weekend, which made it not really the same, as it always is because first out all it was before thanksgiving and second of all there was no snow on the ground. When there is snow one the ground it makes me so happy because I automatically think about Christmas. The Christmas season just isn’t the same without snow. It is a family tradition that we go together every year to pick out the tree together. So when we got there, there was Christmas music playing and a lady passing out candy canes. We grabbed a saw and headed out on the filed of trees. There are so many different kinds of tree. My mom likes the ones with the soft bristles so we go around feeling them and then look at the nametag and then just search for those types of trees. This year we were looking for Fraser firs. My sister and I always have a secret competition as to who will be the one to find the perfect tree. This year neither of us won because my mom was able to find the absolute perfect tree. It was about seven feet and it was a nice full tree with strong branches that would be able to hold all of our ornaments. Every year for Christmas my sister and I get an ornaments from our parents and from our grandparents. So we have quite the collection going of ornaments. Putting them up on the tree is probably my favorite part of Christmas. I could not wait to get home and do that. After my dad cut down the tree we headed back to the main section where the music was playing. We bought some hot chocolate and paid for our tree and then we left. Even though it wasn’t the same experience as it normally is I still loved it. And I love coming to the candy cane Christmas tree farm every year. If you have never been here and you love holiday spirit then this is definitely the place for you to come!

Red Knapps

Friday night I went to a restaurant in downtown Rochester called Red Knapp’s. This place is a 1950’s diner and it is located right off Main Street.  It is a rather small little diner, which adds to the theme of 1950. Right when you walk in you are greeted with a red and white color them. The circle red swivel chairs immediately catch my eye. There are two long counter tops like tables where the swivel chairs are located and then there are also small booths that you can sit at. My friend and I chose to sit at the swivel chairs. They were fun to spin around in I felt like a little kid again. I kind of had to restrain myself from spinning around too much.  The reason that my

friend and I had gone here was because someone had told me that they were known for their malts and milkshakes so we decided to go in and get one. I ended up ordering one that the waitress recommended she said that it was her absolute favorite flavor, which was hot fudge banana oreo malt. Let me tell you that this was the best malt that I had ever had in my entire life. There was so much flavor compacted into it was an amazing sensation for my taste buds. My friend ordered just a hot fudge malt, but she still said it was delicious. We also ordered a side or seasoned fries and they were really good as well. I was thoroughly impressed with this little diner. I would recommend it to anyone. Another thing that I really enjoyed about this place was that they played really good music. They played 50’s music that fit along with the scene. This whole experience made me wish that I were born just a few decades earlier. The uniforms of the worker were red and white and they looked like they had just stepped out of a 50’s movie. Overall I really did had a great experience I will definitely be going back there to have another one of those famous malts because it was probably one of the best things that I have ever tasted. It you ever happen to go there I highly recommend that you get that as dessert. The only complaint that I would ever have is that parking is always a little difficult in downtown Rochester sometimes you have to fight for a spot so you want to get there at a not so busy time so that you don’t have to walk too far of a ways, but I actually do not mind that since the downtown is adorable to walk through.

Healing garden

A few weeks ago I was in Clarkston going for a run and I came across a garden that I had no idea was even there. It was located across the street from the hospital that I drive by every single day and I some how never even knew that it existed. I love when I am able to stumble upon things; it makes it feel like one of those little surprises in life. But anyways the reason that this garden was so significant because it was a healing garden. Which I had never even heard of until now. I read the description on the sign and it talked about how this garden was a spiritual way of healing cancer patients. The garden is a total of four acres long and it is open day and lighted at night. It is a very relaxing place and it allows for the hospital patients to leave all of their worries behind them from the moment that they walk in here. And apparently it was a well used garden because the hospital contains a cancer center in which that I did not even know about. When I entered the garden I was amazed at what I saw. I saw huge bright colorful flowers and majestic statues, red brick pathways, garden decorations, wind chimes. Anything that you can think of that would belong in a garden, it was there and it was beautiful. I followed along the path reading each sign and trying to figure out what it all meant. I came across a rather large circle shaped area. Not knowing what it was I read the really long description on the sign. It talked about how you are supposed to walk on the red brick pathway and follow the spiraling circle until you reach the end and it is supposed to spiritually cleanse your mind and cause you to become in a more relaxed state. I thought that this was really neat and I had never heard of anything like it before. After doing that I continued to walk through the rest of the path. It led me through the woods over a little bridge with a river. There were cool wood carving decorations and the bright colors and the bright green everywhere truly made this an amazing walk. I know that I will be spending some time there because I was able to find so much tranquility while I was there and I found this garden to be truly remarkable. It you are ever in Clarkston I highly recommend that you stop by and visit this garden. It is really an incredible place for these cancer patients to come and rest and relax and get away from all of those hospital rooms.

The Painted Pot

Over the weekend I visited The Painted Pot with my friend. My sister had recommended it to me so I thought that I would check it out. It is located in downtown Rochester right off of University Drive. When we pulled up I knew automatically that I was going to like it. The outside of the building was adorable. It was decorated with flowers. It was one of those buildings that used to be a house, but then it got turned into a company, or a store. So when we walked up the porch and opened the door we and we were immediately greeted with hundreds of pots sitting on shelves. They were in all sorts of colors. They were beautiful.  They looked as if they were professionally done. As we stood there in the entryway with our eyes in awe a lady came up to us asking if we would like tour of the place. So the showed us around. It was fun to walk through the building because it literally was the set up as a house. For example the room where all the paint was located was definitely where a kitchen used to be. And the rooms where we chose our pots and painted them were definitely the bedrooms. After we were done getting a tour we had to think about which pot that we wanted to paint. I ended up choosing a rather large coffee mug. Something that you can still drink coffee and hot chocolate out of, but also something that you can eat soup out of if you wanted to. Painting the mugs was kind of a long process because we were told that in order for the color to fully show up all the way you would have to do three coats. So after painting one coat I would let it dry and then paint another and let it dry. And I kept doing that process until thought that there was enough paint on it. So the whole painting process got quick lengthy and if you are someone who does not have patience then this may not be the activity for you, but I really enjoyed it.  Once I finished painting my pot I gave it to the lady and she told me that they were going to glaze it, which would make it shiny. And that takes a while so I am not able to pick it up until a week from now. So I still do not know what it looks like, but I am very excited to see it. Overall I had a great experience and I will definitely be going back to paint something else because there were so many more things that I wanted to paint but didn’t get the chance to!

The Melting Pot

The Melting Pot

An absolute necessary place to go out to eat would be The Melting Pot located in Troy, Michigan. I went there over the weekend for my cousins birthday dinner and I was absolutely blown away by how amazing it was. What we did was we went there before our reservations and we shopped at the Somerset mall until it was time to go to dinner and that was very enjoyable. We had a big group with us so that made the entire experience really fun! Everything went perfectly and the restaurant was very nice.

When we first walked in I was so surprised to see how nice the inside of the restaurant was. It was so fancy and I felt so honored to be able to be there with my family. When we took our seats our waitress whose name was Rebecca was very friendly to us and she told us about the way that the restaurant worked. She also told us a little bit of history about the restaurant and how the first Melting Pot was located in Florida and I believe she said it was built around 1975, because it recently celebrated its thirty fifth anniversary.  She told us about the four-step process and how the food comes out in

increments. I was so hungry listening to her explain I couldn’t stand the thought of waiting for food to eat for that much longer. First was the cheese-fondue, then the salad, entrée and then dessert.  The cheese fondue was delicious it was served with bread and various vegetables that you would dip in it and it was so good. Then next was the salad, which is pretty standard, but they had signature dressing, which was delicious. Then there was the main entre which you select your individual entre and it is cooked right in front of you.  And then came the dessert. The chocolate fondue, which was amazing, and was definitely my favorite part of the meal, was very tasty. There were so many options of fruits and other tasty treats that would be good dipped in warm melted chocolate. Everything about the meal was delicious and I would go back there at any time! It was a bit pricey, but both the service and the food were phenomenal.

Overall I had a positive experience there and even though like I said earlier that it was expensive it was definitely worth the experience of at least going once. I recommended it to any one who is interested, but my only suggestion would be to make reservations ahead of time because it can tend to be busy especially on the weekend nights. Below there is a link to the restaurants website if you would like to check anything out for yourself!

http://www.meltingpot.com

Palladium 12 theater

A must visit place in Oakland county is going to the Palladium 12 theater in Birmingham, Michigan. I went to this theater because one of my friends was playing his guitar there for live entertainment. So I went there not knowing what to expect from the theater. But when I walked in I was amazed. There was a theater on the right and then there was a fancy coffee shop and also a restaurant. So in the small restaurant/ bar portion is where my friend was playing guitar songs from John Mayer, Matt Kearney, and Michael Bublé. This place was so nice, you can tell that it was very fancy and a place where people would come out on dates maybe if they were trying to impress someone. My friends that came with me were just as excited as I was. We ordered a pizza to all share and it was very delicious. I was so impressed with everything about this place. What was special about this movie theater was that it is a movie theater that shows first run productions and independent productions. So most of the movies were movies that I had never even heard of before. Which I think is really cool and it definitely helps add character to the entire place. Although I did not end up watching a movie my friend was able to show me the inside of the theater and I was amazed when I walked in there because the seats were so comfortable. They were like big recliner chairs and they looked so comfortable. It definitely made me want to watch a movie there sometime. After my friends and I were done eating our pizza we went over to the coffee shop (which was still inside the restaurant and theater) and we ordered some coffee so that we could just sit and relax and enjoy a nice cup of coffee. They put the designs on the top of your coffee and I love it when coffee shops do that.  It was very relaxing to sit there and drink coffee and listen to my friend sing and play live music on his guitar. Overall all I highly recommend coming here! Whether you are getting coffee on your way to work, wanting to go to a nice dinner with friends or family, or you want to see a movie with a great movie experience, it is a great place to come and sit and relax and enjoy some live music. The only suggestion I have is not going at a really busy time because we had to park really far away because there were a lot of people there. But overall it was a great experience and the next time I am in Birmingham I will definitely stop by for a little bit!