Maddie & Will's Senior Pictures

I'm not sure when it happened, but the twins are high school seniors! This past summer, I reached out to our photographer friend and lined up a date for him to take pictures of the twins. We chose a Saturday in late September - knowing that we would see some beautiful Fall colors with cooler temps. Well, joke was on us. After having some colder temps in the month, the twins took their pictures with full sun and 90°. They said it was brutal!

Brutal or not - the pictures are great and I am so thankful for the memories captured.

Enjoying the Area with Matt

Matt and I were able to take advantage of some beautiful days and free schedules this fall. 

One afternoon we drove to Wildcat Den near Muscatine, IA. Daylight was quickly fading so we didn't do any hiking but we did enjoy walking around the old mill.

Another afternoon saw us visiting Scott County Park and the Walnut Grove Pioneer Village. 

For Matt's birthday (8/16), I gave him a "day date" to Iowa City. This day date would include letterboxing (finding a series of boxes in FW Kent Park), Goodwill shopping and dinner. Exactly a month later, we were able to get away for our day date.

Our first stop was in Iowa City at their library. We were able to find a close parking spot (woot!) and then went in hunt of the box - which we found without issue. 

We left the downtown area and headed to FW Kent Park in Oxford to locate a series of 4 boxes plus 1 individual box. It was a great hike with beautiful scenery. The storm clouds surrounding us never opened, thank you Lord! The distant lightning DID cause a delay for the Iowa Hawkeye football game though (which we were following as we hiked). We found all 5 boxes - woot!

As Matt & I drove around, we couldn't get over the yellow hue to everything. You will see that in the next few pictures - the coloring didn't look real! No filters - the greens, yellows and browns were especially vibrant.

As we drove around the park, we found this sign and we were reminded of our visit from Oct 2009. Brought back fun memories.

We had success finding a box in Walford - it was fun to walk around the park and see these chickens and roosters right beside the ball diamond. 

Last box of the day was found in a cemetery in Fairfax, IA. A very productive day of boxing!

We ended our day in Cedar Rapids - Goodwill shopping and eating a delicious dinner at The Blind Pig - highly recommend!

Our day away in Iowa City/Cedar Rapids was a wonderful one! Letterboxing - we found 8 of 8! Beautiful weather, great food, good deals at Goodwill and wonderful company. 

One of Matt's (early) birthday gifts to me - tickets to an Iowa Cubs game. As a surprise, he invited our friends (Brad & Kari Pollock) who now live in Des Moines. We figured out a date that worked for everyone and purchased the tickets. It just happened to work out that we drove to Des Moines the day after we drove to Iowa City! It's a good thing we don't mind driving since we literally drove the same direction the next morning. 

We had planned to find a letterbox at Kinnick Stadium the day before, while in Iowa City. However, with the Hawkeyes home football game, we ditched that plan. We WERE able to find it on our way to Des Moines. 

We left Iowa City and continued to Des Moines.

We arrived a bit early so walked around the outside of the ballpark, including walking across the Martin Luther King Jr Pkwy Bridge (Des Moines River).

A great view of the Iowa Capital Building from the bridge.

Walking back to the stadium, we stopped to see the Des Moines Fort II - the birthplace of Des Moines Memorial Cabin.

We made our way into the stadium. Matt went walking around while I found our seats.

Brad & Kari found us and we enjoyed catching up (never a problem with us!)

I got to see one of my favorite pitchers - Keegan Thompson - pitch towards the end of the game. And David Bote made an appearance after the game. 

The Cubs won the game - their last home game of the season. It was a great experience. We ended up driving to a local Dairy Queen to indulge in some ice cream and hang out with Brad & Kari for a bit before hitting the road home. 3 hours later, we decided it was time to leave! We always enjoy our time with them, and it never fails that our time goes by too quickly.

A few weeks later, we hit the road towards Peoria (southeast). We drove Hwy 150, enjoying the beauty of the season - the harvest was in full "bloom", the blue sky and billowy clouds were spectacular!

Matt drove me to the Wolf Covered Bridge, near Gilson, IL. We walked around to see the bridge & Spoon River up close. Unfortunately, there was a photo shoot happening on the bridge, so we didn't walk across. 

After finding our way back to Hwy 150, we drove through Jubilee College State Park & Historic Site.

I LOVE the harvest season! I could sit on the side of the road and watch the combine go up and down the rows of corn/beans for hours!

Back on Hwy 150 again, we made our way into Peoria. We stopped at Laura Bradley Park to walk around a bit as the sun went to sleep for the day.

We set the timer on Matt's phone and then had fun taking some selfies. Unfortunately, our timing was off so most were blurry. Then, as Matt went to grab the phone, it kept capturing Matt's hand (as it reached in to grab the phone from the rock ledge) and his hand would activate another selfie. We were laughing by the end!

We drove through the park and reminisced about the day we had taken the kids to this park in 2009. I'm so thankful for memories...and the blog entries that help us keep these memories alive (because we all know our minds start slipping after so many years!!)

A few pictures from our visit in 2009. Oh, the kids are so little!

Matt saw this little guy as we crested a hill. He watched us the whole time we stopped to snap the picture. 

We ended our time in Peoria at Tyroni's - a family favorite! Yummy breadsticks and pizza, with leftovers for the kids. 

Maddie's favorite pieces are the corners - Matt took this picture to tease her, but he did save the piece for her to eat.

We had a few hours to ourselves one afternoon and hit the road to Dubuque. The leaves were definitely in full fall color!

We stopped at Bellevue State Park to enjoy the view from the overlook.

Double (triple/quadruple??) chin selfie for the kids, ha!

Continuing on Hwy 52, towards Dubuque, we drove through St. Donatus (IA). We pulled into the parish parking lot to take see the church up close.

Coming into Dubuque, we drove through Mines of Spain Recreation Area (entered through the south entrance off Olde Massey Road). I had never driven through this area of the park before, so this was a nice surprise.

We stopped to read about the history of Julian Dubuque and Mines of Spain (neat tidbits of information) and ended up at the overlook, where Julian Dubuque is buried. 

When I see this picture, I'm reminded of King Harrod from The Very First Noel (a Christmas Eve Tradition movie for us), lol!

These quick trips take me back to our newlywed years - years when we were both working odd schedules and we'd find ourselves in the midst of a beautiful day with an open afternoon. We'd hop in the car and hit the open road - finding the roads not traveled before. Seems like a lifetime ago! What wonderful times spent together - both then and now. I pray we have many more opportunities like these in our future.