Freeport, IL

We finally found a weekend to make our annual trip up to Freeport, IL. When Matt & I first married, he was working at Bonnett's Wholesale Florist and make deliveries to Freeport. We fell in love with this city and have made a promise to visit once a year...once we started having kids, we knew that this would be a place of (hopefully!) great memories!

Our first stop was the Historical Society Museum in Freeport to grab a new letterbox. It was a quick box and the kids enjoyed the flower/butterfly garden, rural schoolhouse & log cabin. Notice the picture of the butterfly garden...The kids are admiring the neighbor's swimming pool...not the flowers!! Katie told me, "Mom, I would sure love to live in that house! Look at that pool!! And just think, we'd have a letterbox in our back yard too!"...I think that last comment was to help Matt with the moving decision!!

Next stop is always THE favorite every year!! Union Dairy!! Now, we live in the land of Whitey's, but it is safe to say that Union Dairy ranks up with Whitey's! After enjoying our ice cream, we headed outside to the Lincoln/Douglas debate square which is next door. We hunted for the letterbox, with no luck. There was also a new box across the street at the library, so we looked & found that one.
Make a note of Maddie's ice cream dish compared to the other kids (her spoon is more than 1/2 way down...while the others are still at the top)! She REALLY liked her ice cream and didn't really stop to breath while eating it!!
After locating, "Three's company: Winter Time" at a park, we headed to our other Freeport favorite...Krape Park. This park is one of the coolest parks in Illinois! It is a beautiful park and includes a carousel, wooden playground, putt putt golf, waterfall, flower garden, tennis, baseball, paddlewheel boats, canoes, and many more things! We hunted for a letterbox within the park with no success...so we headed over to play on the playground. After that, the kids wanted to ride the carousel so we started towards it. It was a VERY hot day - high 90s with very high humidity. We hadn't eaten lunch yet, since we had just eaten ice cream....all of this explains a very upset stomach for Katie. She decided that she didn't want to ride the carousel...but the 3 other kids did.

We left the park early due to Katie not feeling well and to get something to eat. Katie didn't eat much, but did get lots of water in her system and seemed to be more like herself within a few minutes of stopping for lunch. Matt asked her if she would like to go back to the park to ride on the carousel and she agreed that that would be nice.

Our original plans were to stay at the park a bit longer and then head to Lena to find an older series at Lake Le-Aqua-Na, as well as a new box "Winds of Change". Due to Katie not feeling well, we decided to wait until next year to try out more things in the park and to find the Lena series. We did attempt the Winds of Change with no luck. We were blessed with an amazing sight though...

One the way home, we told the kids no movies (they watched one the whole drive up) and they needed to entertain themselves. I guess Will got bored...that is, until Maddie started to poke at him to wake up!!

The trip would have been better without the heat and illness...and better luck with the letterboxes...but we did have fun and enjoyed our time together...until next year!!

Schwebert Park

One of the Quad Cities (Rock Island) has a new park! It is right on the Mississippi and it is beautiful! It opened last weekend (just in time for fireworks on the River!). I heard from a friend that the park included a playground and fountain with ground sprayers. We decided to give it a try last night - are we glad that we did! It is a wonderful park and the evening couldn't have been any better!! As usual, I'll let the pictures speak.

Sewing

Katie received this sewing kit for Christmas from her Great Grandma. She started it soon after Christmas - taking it everywhere she went to work on it! She found it in her closet last week and started working on it again. She has declared it finished! It is a beautiful piece of art - esp. since this is her first AND she taught herself!

Out on the Trail Again

Our letterboxing/daytrips have been minimal this year - to say the least! We've had horrible weather (lots of rain!!), our weekends seem to fill up quickly with work, church commitments & misc. other things. We finally found an open weekend (with beautiful weather!) to hit the road. We headed down south to Burlington in hopes of grabbing all 13 new boxes. We were also hoping that the day would be long enough to head up towards Iowa City to start in on some new boxes there.

First stop was Crapo Park to find "Ed's Tree". We had hiked this trail last summer but couldn't find the box we were in search of (a different box than the one we were hunting for today). "Ed's Tree" proved to be a bit easier to locate and we all enjoyed the view & sound of a great waterfall (and the Mississippi)!

Here are the kids on a bluff overlooking the river.

It's hard to see the waterfall, but that is what the kids are looking at

Alex, minus a tooth!

Exploring further down the trail

Maddie

Will

Maddie

Katie trying her hand at a kartwheel

Next stop was the infamous Aspen Grove Cemetery. Infamous because we have visited this HUGE cemetery EVERY time we have boxed in Burlington. If you are ever in Burlington (esp. if you are a letterboxer!), you have to visit this cemetery. It is beautiful (and loaded with boxes)! We were able to find the 2 new boxes "Aldo" and "Faithful Companion".

Here's Will taking a picture (with his toy camera) of Maddie & Alex

At this point in time Becki came down with the start of a migraine and the kids weren't getting along too well with each other (and therefore driving us crazy), so we decided to take a break for lunch and bypass the 2 boxes at the Starr's Cove Nature Center.

Feeling much better now, we hit the road again to find 7 boxes along hwy 34 by boxer Slow but Sure. Most of their boxes were drivebys, which was nice! Unfortunately, most of them were out on country gravel roads. Needless to say, our van needs a wash! We visited 6 different small country cemeteries...only coming up empty once. We also stopped at a disc golf course - luckily it wasn't busy today (hard to believe!).

This picture is a for a family joke...Matt LOVES Coke while the rest of the family LOVES Pepsi...

A beautiful church & cemetery

We are always amazed at what we find in cemeteries - isn't this statue/grave marker amazing?

We ended our day with 10 boxes. We decided to fore go Iowa City so that the kids could get baths and much needed hair trims before a big day of picnicking & fireworks tomorrow. Matt was also hoping to meet up with some fellow boxer friends Wisconsin Hiker, Martini Man and SZSRocks...all of whom were boxing the Hennepin series "Wizard of Oz" this weekend.