It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

This weekend I was able to go to Traverse City with some friends. I have been invited to do this for the last 5 years by my friend Lori, whose parents own a cottage there. Because of work, I haven't always been able to go, but this year I had off so we left on Friday afternoon and drove about 2 1/2 hours to arrive at the cottage. Their cottage is on one of the lakes near the city. Here is the drive heading into the cottages. It had snowed a little at home but as we drove north, it was snowing more. This drive is beautiful, with trees as far as you can see and looked lovely with the snow on the pines. I was paying too much attention to taking these pictures, because the others spotted 6 deer in the woods as I snapped pictures!
Here is the view from the deck of the cottage. It is very peaceful and relaxing and a great place to enjoy God's creation!
After we unloaded our luggage, we headed back to town and did some shopping on the outskirts of town, where there is an outlet mall.

After an evening of shopping we had supper at the Apache Trout Grill. This is our traditional supper stop. This restaurant is on the Bay and has the best steak and seafood around.
Left to right - Nelda (Lori's Mom), Jodi, Liz, Sharon, Lori, Amy
After supper it was back to the cottage about 10:00pm where we talked until 1:00 and then turned in to get ready for another day of shopping on Saturday.
Saturday was my birthday and it was started by a lovely rendition of happy birthday being sung to me before I even got up!
We went downtown on Saturday to shop at the many unique stores that are found there. We all has some successes and found some bargains. We finished around 5:30 with tired legs and lots of packages.
Here is the Christmas tree that is set up in downtown Traverse City.

The streets are lined with trees and they are all filled with lights. During the day, big snowflakes were falling and the stores were playing Christmas music. It really put us all in the Christmas spirit. We have fun every year and it is nice to get so much Christmas shopping done! We got back home around 8:45. When I got into the house I was thrilled to see that Heather had put up all the Christmas decorations except the tree. It was a great ending for a fun weekend!