Grab a chair! Sit by the fire (or on the porch, as the case may be!!)...

   Last summer I mentioned to my friend Holly and her husband Rob, that I would like to start a blog.  "Porches I Have Been To" or "Campfire Musings".  I had just spent the weekend with them at their house in Muskegon.  We were new friends and we were just getting to know each other.  There is no better way to get to know someone than to spend a weekend in their home!  You get to see them when they first wake up, how they are around their kids, their daily routine.  The even funnier thing was, I had only met them in person once before...and dressed in clown no less!!  They were on their honeymoon and stopped into the pizza place where I am the clown on kids night.  It was a slow night, and we started to chat.  (despite Rob's clown phobia!!)  We found we had much in common and began to correspond.
   Fast forward to my Summer getaway last August at their place.  They live a stones throw from "The Big Lake" (those of you not in the know, that's Lake Michigan).  After a dip to cool off from the current heat wave that had hit, we spent the next few hours on the porch, talking politics, religion, parenting, marriage, (you get the idea!) over some very good Bells beer, late into the night.  And so the rest of the weekend went on with that same vibe.  When the world slows down, and you have nowhere to go but the porch with good friends, the background music is a distant radio and the creak of an old screen door.  Or gathered around a campfire, the smell of woodsmoke on your clothes as you watch sparks fly against a black sky.  It's therapy for the soul!  (I know they've done their share of counseling there!!) These are the times when we share from the heart. 

  Sooo... this is how a blog comes to be!  I now consider Holly and Rob very dear friends.  Thanks for a great weekend guys!  And remember, "What happens on the porch, stays on the porch!"
(Rob, Holly and Family...in front of...the front porch!!  I know, it's not August.)