Continuing to Look for Lincoln...and Letterboxing!

We were blessed with very mild weather this fall - warm temps almost every weekend! We used these weekends to our advantage. One Saturday we headed down towards Macomb, Carthege and Nauvoo, IL to look for Lincoln. We were successful in finding what we were looking for!

The day started out with rain, but we were armed with umbrellas and paper towels (to wipe off the water on the medallions). The rain did let up as the day went on. Here are Becki & Will working on one of the rubbings in Carthege, IL.
Becki & Maddie in Nauvoo, IL

The kids right along the Mississippi River in Dallas City, IL - it was unbelievable how low the river was!The next day, we headed to the Amana Colonies to grab a few letterboxes...

The kids at a rest stop on the way - aren't those sculptures neat!

There's a letterbox somewhere around here!!

We ended November with a trip to Iowa City to find a new series based on Veggie Tales - on of our favs!! It was a great hike and wonderful stamps!! The special thing about this letterboxing trip - it was our 5th year anniversary of letterboxing!!!

Chick-fil-A Family Nights and Date Nights

We LOVE Chick-fil-A! Great food, great service, family friendly - it is a wonderful place to eat! Our local Chick-fil-A (the one that I work for) has family nights every Thursday night. This works out great with our small group schedule. A few families from our small group eat together and then head over to church (less than a mile away) for group. Some of the family nights include an option for the kids to dress up and receive a free kids meal.

Here they are dressed up as turkeys (thanks to my sister Debbie for the VERY last minute idea!!) -

A few weeks later, they dressed like pilgrims & Indians -
They also host date nights throughout the year (mother/daughter, mother/son, father/daughter, father/son). These dates are very special to us and we try not to miss them! Here I am with the girls in November.

Matt with the girls this summer...

For the mother/daughter date night, Chick-fil-A hires a horse drawn carriage. It is generally cold, but so much fun!

Decorating the Tree

As is our tradition, Thanksgiving weekend we get all our Christmas decorations out. I put the tree up and lights on after the kids were in bed one night and then we decorated the tree the next evening. The first ornaments to go on the tree are the new ones for the kids. Matt & I look for specific ornaments that match the kids for that year. We get the camcorder out and share why they are receiving their ornament. We do this so that we can remember for years to come!

Katie received this book with glasses...She still loves to read and continues to write when given a chance!

Alex's ornament is a bear cheerleader. Bear is their school mascot. Alex took a cheerleading course from a local VBS this summer and LOVED it. Not only did she enjoy it, she did a great job!Will still loves his firemen! Whenever Maddie gets bored, I ask if she wants to brush my hair. That normally does the trick! She loves to brush, dry & style my hair. So for her ornament, we found a brush & hair dryer!That evening, we kids sat and enjoyed the glow of the tree - with all of their favorite ornaments!

Swim Lessons

We've heard wonderful things about the swimming program at Blackhawk College. We knew that it was time to get all 4 kids into the lessons. We signed them up for their first session last October and they will be starting another session next week. We are hoping to go through a few sessions before summer so we can have fun while traveling as well as visiting our local pools.

It is nice having all 4 kids in the same pool, at the same time. They all love going and have improved, just in one session.

John Deere Commons

This is a new exhibit at the John Deere Pavilion. Very impressive!!

Can sculpture facts

Height: 17-foot-3
Length: 80 feet
Weight: 170 tons
Number of cans of food: Approximately 320,000
Additional bags of rice and pasta: Approximately 10,000

Another fun fact: In order to replicate the color scheme of an actual S690 combine, the sculpture's designers picked what type of food to use for each part of the sculpture based on the color of its can. For example, the black wheels were cans of black bean chili while the cans making up the green body were mostly spinach.

One final fun fact: The cans of food in the sculpture could feed about 150 families for a year and after the sculpture is disassembled, they will be distributed through the River Bend food bank to nearly 1,100 families in the Quad-Cities area.

Maddie riding her two-wheeler bike

Maddie learned how to ride her two-wheeler this fall!! Much thanks to Alex for working with her.