The Friday Five, 6/24/22: 5 things I've been up to this week

Last weekend was pretty busy, this weekend is also busy but I'll be staying in town at least. It's supposed to be like 90 degrees again for a while too, so I'll probably be staying inside, except in the mornings and evenings. 

Everything-flavored pretzel sticks at Bobcat Bonnie's, Ferndale

What I've been up to this week:

1. Trip to the west side of the state. Most of these will be about the trip—we stayed in Holland from Friday to Sunday, and also went to Grand Haven, Saugatuck, and Fennville, plus a quick stop in Portage on the way home to see friends that live there. 
   
2. Eating out. Lots of good food on that side of the state (and unfortunately my scale reflects that this morning, although we did a ton of walking too). On Friday night we did Boatwerks for lunch (Holland), as is a west side tradition of mine, and for dinner we got takeout from The Grilled Cheese Shack (Saugatuck), which was also very good. Saturday was lunch at the Toasted Pickle (Grand Haven), which we carried out to Odd Side Ales, since Toasted Pickle was quoting a 40-min. wait for takeout (but does free delivery to Odd Side, across the street), and dinner was New Holland Brewery (Holland, not Grand Rapids location as originally planned). Lunch the next day was the Southerner (Saugatuck), one of my absolute favorites, and dinner at was my friend's house in Portage, we got Shawarma King delivered (Kzoo area). 
   We also did my favorite Fennville places on Sunday—we stopped by Crane's to get some pie takeout (more about that below) and by Evergreen Lane Creamery to get their cheese sampler plate.
   I also met up with some former coworker friends yesterday at Bobcat Bonnie's Ferndale, and had the pretzel sticks (pictured above) as well as a cocktail and their Captain Crunch chicken tenders. They used to have better happy hour deals—at one point it was like half-off appetizers and drinks, I believe—but now it's $3 off appetizers and $2 off drinks. The food is still very good there, though.
3. Walking around. In Grand Haven it was a little cold that day (about 68-70 degrees, lol ...) so even though I had brought my swimsuit, I ended up skipping laying out on the beach; instead, we walked over to the lighthouse, then walked around the beach area. In Saugatuck, we did a lot of walking downtown, too.
4. Accidentally attending a classic car show. I wanted to stop at Crane's Pie Pantry (Fennville) to pick up a blueberry pie to bring to my Portage friends' house. When we arrived, there were cars parked everywhere, even on the main road, which is where we had to park ... which was unusual. When we walked down to the main restaurant/bakery, we found that they were doing a classic car show, which is what was taking up so much of the parking lot. We looked at the cars and then stopped by the bakery to get some pie, hard cider, donuts, and a Brix soda for me—they're based out of Grand Rapids and their black cherry cream soda is one of my all-time favorite sodas (and I don't usually allow myself non-diet sodas, so it's always a treat). 
5. Seeing friends. It turned out that my friends Heather and Sean were also on the west side of the state that weekend, visiting from the Chicago suburbs and staying in South Haven, so we met up in Saugatuck for coffee/tea that first night. They have six-week old twins now, too, so I got to meet them for the first time! I met Heather on Birthright four years ago and I also visited them last September (and stayed with them, for half of my East Coast trip). We're not usually in the same state at the same time so it was fun to see them. 
   I also met up with former coworker friends yesterday, as I mentioned above, for Bobcat Bonnie's in Ferndale—on Thursdays they do an all-day happy hour, which was nice. I hadn't seen them in a while either, so it was good to see them, too. 

Sampler plate from Evergreen Lane Creamery, Fennville