Wine and Canvas at Great Legs Winery

2/24/2018

This was a great date! It was Bert's first ever attempt to produce a painting. Bert's creation could not compete with Sue's masterpiece but it wasn't all that bad - especially when looked at from a distance. The beverages were great too, and the artist was a great teacher. We should  do this again some time.

Blue Grass at Park Theater in Holland MI

This was an experiment and we did not know what to expect. We knew the Park Theater did exist in Holland Michigan, but we had never been there. When we arrived it was kind spooky, just a few people in line and at the call window was very old fashion. Entering the building it looked like it was too old to handle Theater. I have seen better bars in most of the houses that have on. The interior looked like a building that had been empty for a decade or two and should be condemned :-). We learned that there is a special group working on renovating the Theater and they want to make it nice and shiny again.

To let you know up front. It has a great atmosphere and we have been there a few more times. It is a place with character, good performances, great visiting artists and you can feel the passion that the people possess that run the place. Go and look for yourself.

https://parktheatreholland.org/

The performance of Michael Cleveland and the Flamekeeper is just exceptional. I never cared for Bluegrass music too much, but Michael is the master or the trade and makes his fidel talk, sing and connect to you. I have never heard anybody playing a Fidel like this. His group is very special too with great Characters in it. Go and listen to them yourself. You would be very lucky if you can do this at the Park Theater the way we did it. This is a great place fo a group and performance like this. Don't take our word for it - try it.

https://www.flamekeeperband.com/

Lunch date at Sheshco GR

     
 This is a great place for lunch and/or dinner. It is one of our favorite places for Mediterranean food.  The puffed flatbread with olive oil/lemon/garlic spread they serve with any meal is to die for. There is no equivalent to this. It comes fresh out of a wood-fired open stone oven and is out of this world. If you ever drive by there - don't hesitate to stop. It is neither fancy nor luxurious. It is what every good restaurant should be - a place with good food.

http://www.sheshcogrill.com/

Valetines Date at Grand Plaza Hotel in GR

2/17/18

This was a great date! On the way we to this date we had breakfast at our all-time favorite breakfast restaurant in East Grand Rapids. We stayed at the Amway Grand Plaza in Grand Rapids and saw the Carol King Movie. This was a wonderful Musical bringing back memory with music from the '50s and '60s. After the musical, we had a 5-course meal at the Kitchen by Wolfgang Puck.before retiring to a luxurious room in the hotel.

Carol King the Muical and brunch at Marie Catrib

This date started with brunch at our favorite little restaurant called Marie Catrib in East Grand Rapids. We discovered this a few years ago and loved it ever since. It serves great Mediterranean food.  (Note: sadly it closed in late 2018).

Afterwards, we went to see Carol King the Musical at the DeVos Performance Center. It is part of their Broadway series. We really enjoyed it. We did not know what to expect but the performance was great and the stage design was great. Again we were very impressed with what GR has to offer. 

Faces and Places

It was time to come up with another date night. It is winter, it is gray and it is cold. What can we do? There was a movie at The Knickerbocker Theater in Holland They show all kinds of old and foreign movies throughout the year. Bert always wanted to try it. That night there was a movie called "Faces and Places" - no idea what it was but one needs to be brave and try new things. We started off with a dinner at the new bar in town called The Big, inside the Marriot. Just regular bar food and decent but nothing outstanding. Then we walked over to the Theater. what a surprise! The movie was in the French language with English subtitles, the story was rather strange and it was all kind of awkward. During the whole movie, we asked ourselves what we got into. But towards the end, we started to like the movie a little bit. And after we were done and going home we talked about the movie quite a bit and the movie and the story started growing on us. It is a really great movie but you need to open yourself up to the story and take some time to let the movie grow on you. We need to go back and watch the movie again. We do recommend to watch this movie.

Car Show

This was something really different. We visited together the Car Sow at the DeVos Convention Center. We spend a couple of hours to look around and enjoy all the new cars. But we did not find anything we really need. Just spending time together and enjoying each other company.