Kicking off the Christmas Season 2019

Tis the season - already! We headed down to Peoria for our annual Festival of Lights tour. We went the Saturday before Thanksgiving, which was the first night of the lights being open to the public

We enjoyed our traditional Tyroni's pizza and drove around the area to look for the elusively hidden FELOPI Ornament. We drove up to the wreath to get a close up view. We shopped Goodwill. We finished our day with the drive through the light display.

It was a bit strange driving around town and not having our usual light displays up for the season (a lot of the neighborhoods weren't decorated yet). It was nice to enjoy the lights without a long wait, but no waiting was weird too! We remembered our annual picture of the kids. I think we've only missed one year. This particular picture was pretty funny to look at. If you've ever watched The Middle, you will understand Will's actions in this picture.

Then I asked Kaitee & Will to move up so I could see them better.  Oh Will...

Fast forward a week and our house is ready for Christmas! We gave the kids their new ornaments before decorating the tree. 

Alex - A handmade, beaded ornament from Guatemala to remember her mission trip from the summer. 

Will - he has been working on his "Family Man" badge through Trail Life. A part of this badge is cooking a full day of meals. He has continued to ask to help with meal prep throughout the summer -especially grilling! We hope that he continues to love cooking as he grows older.

Kaitee - Wheel of Fortune. If you know Kaitee at all, there is no explanation needed! Not only does she LOVE this game show...She rocks at it!! It is definitely one of her top bucket list items - to be a contestant on the show someday.

Maddie - She ended up with a cast & crutches (followed by a boot and crutches) for 2 months this year. It ended her winter volleyball playing a bit earlier than anticipated. Major bummer. She is all healed and we are thankful for that!

The adventures of Moe - captured on one ornament!

Our annual vacation ornament. We decided to look for an ornament from Jekyll Island. While this was just a small part of our trip, we really enjoyed the turtles, playing at Driftwood Beach, dinner with friends and combing the beach at night - looking for nesting turtles. It was a day full of wonderful memories.

There is something magical about Christmas lights - the soft glow of the white lights, illuminated in a dark room. So beautiful!

Matt bought this Nativity Set during one of his trips to Jerusalem. They are made out of Olive wood. This set is a special part of our Christmas!

Another special collection, near and dear to my heart - the choir of angels! Each kid made one as a Cubby in Awana. Since they were Cubbies for 2 years (3 & 4 years old), I have a Heavenly Host of Angels! Their wings are made from the kid's hand outlines.

The kids don't have school the whole week of Thanksgiving. This year, we decided to take advantage of that break and headed up to Chicago one of those days. We had a few plans in mind, but so much of that depended on the weather. It was cold, but we were thankful for no rain as we headed to Carpentersville in search of a letterbox. While we weren't successful in finding the box (not sure we were looking in the correct place!), we did enjoy a hike around part of the old Meadowdale Raceway. What a neat history!

We ate an early dinner at Lou Malnati's and then decided (thanks to the major rainstorm) to head to IKEA for a bit.

Our main stop for the day - Morton Arboretum Illumination. Every year they light up the gardens for Christmas. We had wanted to do this last year, but it was sold out on the nights that we were available to go. We knew we needed to make it happen this year. Unfortunately, it does tend to sell out, so I bought tickets well in advance. We prayed for no snow storms/blizzards. Guess I didn't think to pray for no rain! Yep, it rained...and rained...and rained lots more. We bundled up and took in our umbrellas. We debated on using our ponchos but opted for the umbrellas. Maybe we should've used the ponchos instead!

While the weather was absolutely miserable, we truly enjoyed our time together at Illumination. It had some really neat displays with props, lights, music, light beams and spotlights. Beautiful and breathtaking - even with the rain!

Look at all of that rain!

Alex, my little Tree Hugger...

It was wet, it was cold and we drove home in a crazy thunderstorm with "light up the whole sky" lightning...but it was a great day of making memories and enjoying time together.

Castle Rock & White Pines State Parks

We always try to take advantage of days where we have nothing planned. We especially love those days during the fall - we never need a reason to hit the road!

On this particular open day, we headed towards Dixon, IL. No real plans...

Our first stop was outside of Dixon at Castle Rock. We love driving IL Rt 2 during the fall. It is a scenic drive that runs alongside the Rock River. We try to stop at the Castle Rock Overlook whenever we are out that direction. There are a lot of steps, but the view is beautiful!

When we left the house, we knew it would be a colder day that we typically like for traveling. We had grabbed coats, hats, gloves, etc. as a precaution - so glad that we did! Being by the water always makes things colder!

We got out and started climbing the stairs at the overlook. Alex, Will & Maddie ran ahead - making it to the top much quicker than we ever would!

As we crested the last staircase, we were bombarded with snowballs!! It had snowed over Halloween and there was some snow still on the boardwalks! If you look closely, you can see the snowballs, flying through the sky towards us.

Direct hit!

The three kids then headed to the lower deck and threw snowballs from there! They were actually doing a great job of aiming/throwing! We got hit a few times.

At one point, the kids turned on each other - here is Alex smacking Maddie with a snowball at close range! Notice that Maddie has one in her hand and wastes no time in flinging it at Alex!

And then Will aimed for Alex too!

We spent close to an hour at the overlook. There was lots of laughing as the snowballs went flying.

We headed a bit further north on Rt 2 and turned around in Byron. We were surprised by the major flooding along the river. It has been a hard year for flooding around the Midwest. We drove along the river in Dixon and a few other areas, ending up at White Pines State Park. We were bummed that the fjords were closed due to high water. It didn't stop us from getting out and walking a bit though. The ground was definitely saturated from all of the rain/snow we'd had during the previous few weeks. As we walked one direction, the kids walked the other way (to the playground) and we soon found each other across the stream from each other. They enjoyed more snowball throwing too!

There were some huge leaves throughout the park. We ended up grabbing a few each and dropping them into the creek from the bridge. It was fun to watch the leaves travel down the "rapids" - some failing and some succeeding.

Remember that I mentioned how saturated the ground was...yep, made it hard to get to the bridge!

The kids wanted to try their Karate Kid skills out...

And of course, no trip is not complete without the Titanic re-enactment! I told them that they failed miserably...they literally had a stream of water 15 feet away and chose to NOT use that as a prop. FAIL! lol

We ended our day in Dixon looking for dinner. A friend had suggested Angelo's Pizzeria so we gave that a try. We loved the restaurant and the food was pretty good too. It was nice to try something new which we will most likely try again, next time we are in Dixon.

Must have been a good day...