Grand Rapids Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Terrific Tuesday Randoms
Yay! that is great news!
The trick is to go during off season or during the week and talk to the owners behind the counter. Tell them you want to learn. That's what DH and I did on our honeymoon in TC and we learned a TON. They were so helpful. It really increased our confidence.
I used to have a nanny job every other weekend that was $300 a month - well that ended last winter. I have been pounding the pavement by applying to the bowling alleys, retail stores, walmart, target, etc. and can get nothing. So I dont know what else to do.
That's tough. I'm sending you lots of second job vibes!
Did you find any wineries that were particularly helpful?
Is it his first?
Yes
Bye bye baby curls 
Awww. Take lots of pictures! The place I went to gave me a some of T's curls in a little plastic baggy. I'm not a super sentimental person, but maybe T will appreciate it someday...ha...
That's my birthday
I am bringing my own bag. Haha. I am not super sentimental by nature, but I am a little sad about this. My hair from my first haircut is in my baby book. If I actually kept up on a baby book for Noah, I could put it in....but alas, I am a bad mother where that is concerned.
Mostly the smaller ones . . . the only one I wasn't fond of was Leelanau Cellars. It's like the Boone's Farm of northern Michigan.
Totally agree. I think it's fine for him to disagree with Stabenow's decisions and while I don't love the "attack ad" culture, I do understand that it's sort of a fact of political life. However, something so blatantly racist is just gross.
I think wine touring in MI has gotten crazy popular and that has tainted it a little bit. When we went up there in September '05 or '06 for the very first time, it was quiet, peaceful and much more personal than it has been more recently.
While I'm happy for the successful tourism, it's kind of like my old vent about Pure Michigan leading to more out of staters on "my" beach.
My SIL called the other night and said she wants to throw our MIL a 60th b-day party at the end of April. The party will be large enough that we need to rent a space for it. I suggested that we determine the guest list and then set a budget so we can be clear about how much this is going to cost both our families. She said she never sets budgets for parties and that she just tries to get everything as cheap as possible.
This will be about a 75 person party. Am I crazy for thinking we should set a budget to stick to? I just think this could spiral out of control. And I would rather know ahead of time how much money we will need to shell out for this party.
Hoek, I don't think you're crazy for wanting a budget at all, especially since this is a large enough party to rent space. Setting a max budget doesn't mean you have to spend it all, it's just a commitment not to go over a certain amount.
If you're concerned, could you tell her that you're throwing in $X (whatever you're comfortable with) as your contribution and staying out of the planning?
Thus the need to go during the week or on the off season. One thing we love to do is go the day after one of the wine event weekends - the tasting rooms have tons of open bottles (and sometimes leftover food) that they are more than happy to get rid of! (yes, I'm cheap. LOL)
Ditto.
Hoek, good luck! The budget thing sounds very similar to planning my parents' anniversary party w/ my siblings.
Good luck, Charity. Finding work can be very challenging.
That sounds like a great plan. I think we were totally saying the same thing in different ways. It's just harder to get up there during the week.
We have plans to head that way in early May and I can't wait.
Your line about setting a max budget is almost exactly what I said to her.
We could definitely just pledge an amount and leave the planning to her. But, and this is going to sound awful, I know the party/food/booze wouldn't be as good! Ha ha. I really, really like planning parties so I don't want to give up helping completely. I just want to be upfront about the costs and she just wants to avoid the conversation.