How did we end up in Chicago??

We left Sunday morning to visit some parks for the kids in Rochelle, IL. There is also a letterbox in a museum that we were hoping to locate.

We visited a few parks, ate our picnic lunch & found the museum box...then headed towards DeKalb to find a few more boxes. Matt was thrilled to find his first "Holy Grail" series box. We hyped up the next box which was in a pet store...we used the pets at the pet store as bribery material for quite a while. When we got to the store, there were no pets! Major bummer. Matt felt so bad that he bought the kids some cookies...only to be informed that the cookies weren't human treats! Didn't matter to the kids - they ate them anyway! Matt & I are still shaking our heads about that stop!

We drove to Genoa, IL to find an indoor box and then went in search of dinner. Looking on a map (after dinner), we were shocked to see how far east we had traveled! While the title is a bit misleading (we didn't make it all the way to Chicago)...we were surprised! We headed back west to find a few more boxes in Kirkland. Most of these are in the woods and due to heat, wet ground, bugs & daylight quickly fading, we decided to hunt for a few quick ones. One the way home, Matt read through some other clues only to find that we LITERALLY walked/drove by two other boxes. Hopefully they will be there in the fall when we go back to Rockford!! Urgh!

Our night ended with a horrible wind/rain storm - never fun to drive in! We were thrilled to get home.

It's Backwards!!

We went to the Mississippi Mist Fountain in Muscatine today with some cousins...Maddie got in her swimsuit and came running in to show me..."Look Mommy, on backwards!"...

She thought it was the funniest thing...maybe when she gets a bit older, she won't think so! Also, when one does something, another will soon follow!

Pictures for Grammy (& Grandad)

Sorry Dad, I couldn't resist...

We had all of the grandkids home this past week (first time in a few years that EVERYONE was home!) Peggy suggested that we coordinate a grandkid picture - it was a wonderful idea. We had a picture taken in 2002 (5 kids), 2006 (9 kids) & now (11 kids).

We took the pictures at the Butterworth Center in Moline - a Deere estate with Beautiful gardens! A big thank you to Kari for taking the pictures!

Rockford / Beloit

Any excuse to get out of the house is good for me!! I think that is one reason that letterboxing has been such a good thing for our family. Matt loves the art of the hobby and the kids & I love the getting out and exploring (yeah...matt does too!). By the weekend, I am ready to point to the map and say, "let's go here...are their letterboxes to find?"

There is a new boxer by the name of SweetEllGee in the Rockford/Beloit area and she has been busy planting!! We decided that there were enough new boxes to make the trip worthwhile so we headed north last Sunday.

Instead of taking Interstates 88 & 39 to Rockford (who wants to pay tolls, when there is a beautiful, scenic drive along the Rock River!!), we headed north at Dixon. We stopped at the Castle Rock State Park Scenic Overlook. The kids did wonderful climbing all the steps - Matt had to race to keep up with them!

All 4 kids enjoying God's Beauty!

Next stop "80s Arcade" series of letterboxes. When we approached the first box we noticed someone else who we thought might be boxers...when we found the box, matt immediately looked in the logbook and saw that they were indeed boxers and ran ahead to introduce himself. He was thrilled to meet Tat2Bob & Kimberly and we hung out with them for the remaining boxes....only to meet up with them again at Summer Treats...they are a very nice couple and we enjoyed our time with them. We don't often box with fellow boxers, so it is a treat when we do! We ended our time with them at "ARRGH" (see pictures of Riverside Park, Beloit).

We ended up seeing lots of playgrounds & parks this trip - I think we got 12 slides for our slides adventure! Notice on the 2nd picture down...yes, those are our 4 kids not playing on the playground, but looking longingly at the swimming pool!!

Our favorite park by far though was Riverside Park in Beloit....the pictures show why!!

We looked & found the 3 boxes at the Welcome to IL & Welcome to WI rest stops. Our favorite was the Wisconsin stop - the kids loved playing by the Welcome sign and waving to all of the cars.

One of our last stops for the day was at the Old Arch Bridge (1882). We found 2 boxes here. The bridge is a beautiful one and it is so nice to see that the history of it is being preserved.

We ended our day with 12 slides, 12 boxes, 2 exchanges and 6 very tired people! We got home at 11:30 that night!! It was a long day.

Still my little baby!

After going in to the twins room numerous times the other day...I finally separated them for nap time...I walked in to my room a while later to find Will on my bed - asleep. We haven't had opportunities to take cute "sleeping" pictures for a long time...we couldn't pass up this one!!