Not a typical Wednesday

Started with a fancy breakfast and ended with my first-ever karaoke performance!

Woke up at the hotel and met everyone downstairs for breakfast at one of the hotel's restaurants. I had scrambled eggs, ham hash, and toast with cherry butter. Then retrieved my car from the parking garage and went back to the clubhouse, where several of us who had brought our own cars overnight then carpooled to Zeeland.

In Zeeland, we ended up at an office building where a corporate chef was waiting. We were paired up and given recipes, ingredients, and instructions in cooking a gourmet meal. My partner and I were given a recipe for scallops with bacon and spinach. He (my partner) asked me if I watched the Food Network (I don't.) He does, and turned out to be a much better cook than I so I let him take the lead. Did learn a neat trick about chopping onions fast that might come in handy someday.

Other dishes (there were 10 in all) were: gazpacho (wasn't as bad as I thought it might be); avocado-grapefruit salad (didn't try); chicken breast with cumin, salsa, and guacamole; linguini with pesto; quattro fromaggi (a gourmet mac & cheese); eggplant bake (this wasn't bad. surprisingly); pork tenderloin with couscous and red onion confit; blackened shrimp with wild rice; and pound cake with fresh fruit. We were stuffed by the time we were finished!

Team building not done. We then traveled to Holland, where we visited the future site of our Lakeshore clubhouse. Beautiful land surrounded by wooded wetlands so we won't have to worry about development crowding us in. We celebrated a July 4th birthday while there by lighting sparklers.

But that's not all... then we traveled to the shores of Lake Macatawa where we boarded the Holland Princess for a boat tour of Lake Macatawa. This double decker boat came complete with pickle pins as we passed the Heinz factory and a karaoke machine on the top deck. It was pretty chilly up there (this was the coldest July 1 on record in the area) but several brave souls showed us their stuff. The second to the last song was "You're the One That I Want" from Grease and I was persuaded to make the trio a quartet and ended up in my first (and probably last!) karaoke performance. I wasn't holding a mike so nobody could hear how bad I was, song-wise, but I'm told my moves were good!

After the ride was over, a group picture then back to Grand Rapids and then home. It was nice to finally experience the daytime part of an inservice as I'm usually with the kids instead of with the grownups. That is my job, of course, but I'm glad it worked out this way this time around.