Today my mom and I tried out a new recipe for the great-grandmother’s 101st birthday party. We tried this recipe because the fruit made it perfect for summer plus it was quick and easy to make!

What You Need:

• 1 ready-to use refrigerated pie crust (1/2 of 15-oz package)
• 1 tsp cinnamon sugar (3/4 tsp sugar and 1/4 tsp cinnamon)
• 1-1/4 cups half-and-half
• 1 package (4 serving size) JELL-O White Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding
• you could also use vanilla pudding but I highly recommend the white chocolate
• 1 cup thawed Cool Whip Whipped Topping
• a few cups of fruit (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, blackberries, kiwis, etc.)
• we used strawberries and blueberries to make a red, white, and blue themed pie–(great for the 4th of July!)

Make It!


Preheat oven to 450°F. Unroll pie crust onto round baking sheet; sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned; cool completely.


Meanwhile, pour half-and-half into medium bowl. Add dry pudding mix. Beat with wire whisk for 2 minutes or until well blended. Gently stir in whipped topping. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.


Spread pudding mixture over crust just before serving and top with fruit of choice.
Cut into slices, serve, and enjoy!

via wishmich.org:

Wish-A-Mile® 300 Pedals for 22nd Year and Grants 250 Wishes

More than 800 dedicated cyclists, 100 volunteers, six semi trucks, 5,000 bottles of Gatorade, 10 bicycle mechanics, 30 volunteer massage therapists, 15 volunteer medics all made the three-day, 300-mile journey from Traverse City to Chelsea July 24-26. And it was all to grant 250 wishes to deserving Michigan wish kids.

The Wish-A-Mile 300 Bicycle Tour, affectionately known as WAM, pedaled for its 22nd year. It is the largest single Make-A-Wish fundraising event in the United States, garnering $1.52 million this year.

“WAM, and all the dedicated, compassionate riders and volunteers never cease to amaze me,” said Susan Lerch, President & CEO of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan. “Michigan has the worst economy in the nation – we have had for a long time. So the fact that we can all come together every summer and raise this kind of money for wishes is really incredible. We bring joy to the kids, and in doing so, receive joy ourselves.”

Warren Wisner, a cyclist from Chelsea, Mich. was proud to return for his fifth year on the tour. “If I had one thing to say about Make-A-Wish and WAM, I’d say you need to try it if you haven’t. It’s an experience everyone needs to be a part of, whether you ride or volunteer or just donate. Whatever the case may be, it’s a really worthwhile cause for some kids who really need help.”

As always, exhausted riders found the journey more than worth it in the end. Their friends and families greeted them as they crossed the finish line, and their wish heroes – wish kids whom they’d been riding in honor of – proudly placed medals around their necks.

“Thank you for all the time, support and making wishes come true for kids like me,” said wish hero Nella, 10. “If it wasn’t for all the Wish-A-Mile riders, our wishes and dreams would never come true.”

The funds raised through 2009 Wish-A-Mile 300 helped grant the 6,000th wish in the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan’s 25-year history. Three-year-old Amanda, who was diagnosed with metastatic hepatoblastoma, a cancer affecting her liver, wished to meet her favorite character from Sesame Street: Elmo. Click here to read Amanda’s Story.

Read daily recaps of the tour and view photos and videos from each day at www.wishmich.org/onthetour.

My Pictures from the Tour!

I got to take someone along with me on the tour so I choose Annie. We were given the title as Safety Captains and we quickly became the Safety Stars. Our first job as safety captains was to decorate our van then while on the tour we coordinated help from police enforcement with the tour.


Also, everyone was assigned a “Wish Hero” to whom they could dedicate their three day journey to. At the finish line your wish hero would award you with a medal for your hard work. My wish hero was Alexandra.


It truly was an amazing experience… especially when you get to actually meet the person at the end that you dedicated all of your time and hard work to. This was definitely a time in my life that I will never forget. I cannot wait to volunteer for the tour next year!


To view the pictures taken by our professional photographers, visit kpiphotos.com and bryanmitchell.com.

This is the legendary Tiger's Stadium in Detroit, Michigan.

years ago

a month ago

days ago

Wyandotte’s Historical Society hosted a Speakeasy downtown on Saturday night. Annie’s parents were bar tending so Annie, Jordan and myself decided to get dressed up and head down there for the night.

There were old Model Ts, Charlie Chaplin movies, a fashion show (I got third place), apple juice and grape juice (wine) and ginger ale (beer).

It was a lot of fun. Here are some of the pictures from the night.

I’m sure this list will change a lot over the next few weeks… but as of right now these are my summer goals.

• read as many books as possible on the Lost Book Club list
• picnic and read all day in Bishop Park (pictured above)
• do as much volunteering as possible
• break in to the Detroit train station before it gets demolished
• have a (cheesey) scary movie marathon
• go to New Orleans to volunteer
• go canoeing in Ann Arbor
• take a road trip anywhere
• learn to make frushi
• go camping
• finish crocheting my blanket
• go to Chicago with a lot of people
• find a new hobby
• spend as much time with friends as I can before heading back to GR for a year

I’m very upset because yesterday the Detroit city council voted for an emergency demolition of the Michigan Central Depot in Detroit.

Event though this building has ben vacant for 21 days longer than I’ve been alive, I’m still infatuated with it.


Rising high above the surrounding area, the old train station is thought of as an eye sore by most but I see it more as a statue. A statue standing to represent Detroit’s glorious past… and hopefully its glorious future. I love nothing more to catch a quick glimpse of the train station while driving through Detroit. In that instant, I imagine the bustling station in its heyday. Floods of people coming in and out of the station. Trains sounding their whistle as a final call for passengers. And I picture my grandma waving goodbye to a loved one as a train pulls away (although I’m not even sure she utilized the trains when she was growing up in Detroit). The train station, even in its current state, reminds me that the city wasn’t always like this and that there still it hope.

The demolition project “most be shovel-ready in 120 days” and completely gone within the next 18 months so that doesn’t leave me very much time to make my first and last trip into the train station. Anyone want to join me? It will be an adventure for sure.


SOURCE: Detroit council votes to demolish Michigan Central Depot (The Detroit News)

I am interning this semester at the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan and as part of my internship I had been helping to plan a benefit gala.

Well the big gala was last Thursday at the DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids and it truly was a “motivating and inspiring” evening. Attendees paid $150 a seat and were also encouraged to donate more once they were there. And why wouldn’t they donate more? The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a wonderful organization that does so much good for so many sick children in Michigan.

I had been working with MAW in putting together this event for a few months. I mostly dealt with calling attendees and donors so I really had no idea about anything else, like the decor. The gala was under-the-sea themed and it was called Enchantment. There were tons of sand, (fake) coral reefs and fish, balloons as bubbles, a mannequin dressed as a suba diver hanging from the ceiling, girls dressed as mermaids, a giant clam, real boats “shipwrecked” in the venue, a wooden pirate ship as the stage, and a treasure chest.

The quality of the photos isn’t the best. You would never guess that I have a pretty good camera, right? It was super dark in the venue and the flash made everything real washed out looking so I used some fancy “theatre” mode my camera had.

I was honestly blown away by how all of this came together. I was speechless when I walked in and saw the end result.

We also granted a little girl’s wish for a puppy that night. She wanted an English Bulldog. So we got her an English Bulldog puppy! She was so happy. It was really cute!

The last two are the only pictures I had of me from the night. One of me in the bathroom (with my matching cell phone) and one of my boss, Cara and I.

I feel really lucky to have had the opportunity to be able to do something like this and to be able to work with these people. I really feel that I’ve learned so much more from this internship than just work experience. I had previously wanted to go into music or sports public relations but now I’m almost certain that I will end up in non-profit public relations or philanthropy.