Our family made our first trip to Michigan together since 2019. I was thankful to visit my parents back in June. We also haven’t seen Jen and Blue since then, so it was a great reunion for our family.
The first week, we spent some time with Grace’s family in Ann Arbor. Delaney was still in town for school and Addy joined to help her move apartments. Grace and the kids spent time at Youngjoo and Il’s house, where they had the best time on the lake.
We didn’t get to see too many friends on this trip, though we did have a nice dinner with Frances and Jon in Ann Arbor. We had a great weekend away in Chicago at the end of our first week. The following week, my aunt and cousin’s daughter, Sara, joined us in Michigan. This was also the first time my mom has seen her sister during COVID-19.
We were super happy that SJC was back on this summer, though it was quite different experience, starting with the drive-through drop off. It was great to catch up with lifelong friends at Dairy Queen before heading our different ways for the week. Thankfully, everyone has been surviving the pandemic and now our kids were spending a week together as second-generation campers.
Grace and I headed straight from Higgins Lake to Traverse city. We dropped off Jen at her friends Jen and Dan’s house. We checked into Grand Traverse resort and got in about 10 holes of golf before heading in to meet Jea and Eddie’s family. While it was great to finally meet their newest addition, Bella, it turned out she wasn’t welcome to stay at the resort, so our couple days of golf and hanging out were blown up. We had a quick dinner together before the mosquitoes came to eat us alive. We were mostly able to avoid the rain and got in a couple rounds and a nice dinner at the resort before leaving for home. We met Jen and the Lipfords for lunch in Traverse City and then drove home before the Haus started arriving.
Myung and Millie arrived in style as Myung piloted a single engine plane from New York, with a stop in Ohio. They took went flying around Michigan and up to Mackinaw Island and now have been to more places than me. Andrew and Clarence drove from NJ. We spent some time exploring Detroit and reminiscing about how our uncle terrorized us in the glass elevators at the Renaissance Center.
Halle, Liz and Mochi flew in on Friday. The main purpose of their trip was to show Halle U of M and show Andrew what he missed out on. We will probably never let him live that down.
On Saturday, Clarence and I went to pick up the kids at camp. We brought Zoe home with us and dropped her at her grandmother’s house. It turned out that everyone, including Lucas, had the best week/year at camp. I’m so glad Olivia and Sara were able to spend this precious experience together. I hope she’ll be back.
It was now a full Hau-Rhee family reunion, like so many we had in the 70s and 80s. We made full use of my parents’ back yard with some serious kickball and whiffle ball. This is the last time we’ll ever be able to do this as my parents will be moving next year.
My mom shows her love in many ways, but especially through cooking. While we told her to take it easy, she was set on cooking her delicious food for us. We went on yet another tour of U of M. Clarence and I overlapped while he was in graduate school and we had a lot of fun reminiscing about our time together. He knows a lot more about electrical engineering than I do. We gave them the full experience with a stop at Zingerman’s and the Big House.
We took a lot of family photos and had one last meal together at Benihana. We celebrated my Eemoh’s birthday and the big ones we weren’t able to celebrate together during the pandemic. We had such a great time together and it would have been even better with Lou and Sandor’s families. Hopefully we’ll all be together again soon.
