Golden Living Center residents now have friends in Lansing, after notes they wrote for a balloon release traveled all the way over Lake Michigan.

"It made it all the way across Lake Michigan to us," Sandra Fowler, the recipient of the balloons, said Wednesday.

To her surprise, the tangled balloons she said her husband found outside their cabin carried six messages from residents of a Wisconsin nursing home.

"That's far away," Golden Living Center resident Mary Samolinsky said upon finding a map of the distance the balloons traveled in her care package from Fowler.

Samolinsky's balloon was among the six that landed in Fowler's backyard, and elicited the response they had hoped for.

"I just put a card in there that we received these messages and 'this is our response' and 'greetings from Michigan,'" Fowler described, "and to please get it to the person who was in charge of orchestrating the whole air message."

"They were all amazed and excited...," Golden Living Center Activity Director Nancy Duerr said. "[It] Shows that a nursing home can have fun and still live too just as anybody else."

Duerr said the balloon release was part of National Nursing home week and was such a hit after they got a care package back, they'll be sure to do it again.

"We had them sign their first name and their last initial and write a message if they could..." She explained.

Fowler was eager to respond to the thoughtful gesture. "I was pretty surprised actually... that they took the time to do it," she said. "I just hope it made their day."

Fowler's care package came full of Michigan treats, the activity director saying residents are already discussing sending a care package of their own back to their new pen pals.