VBS is done

St. Anthony's Vacation Bible School has wrapped up this week; it went well. We were all pretty busy and therefore are now pretty tired. A couple of our sunflowers have opened up in the last couple days. I planted a couple varieties this year. This has been the coldest July ever recorded for Peoria - not a day made it to 90!

Family pic

Taken at a wedding we attended last night. Vacation Bible School started at St. Anthony's tonight. We have only 47 kids total, but tonight tired me out.

Karen and Karen visit St. Louis

Yesterday Karen and Kris visited St. Louis through an event hosted by the Bartonville Library. They visited the zoo and the City Museum. Both were really cool. Pix by Karen.

More northern WI pix

Picking up where I left off on Monday's blog, on Saturday I again climbed the "big rock" behind my parents cabin. It has been another dry summer up in northern WI, and some of the leaves are already turning colors as a result. That, coupled with the unseasonably cool weather last weekend, made it seem like September rather than July. There were lots of (little) blueberries up there. Later, Dad showed us a different perspective on the "big rock" (in background of second pic) - from another, smaller outcrop to the east. Later on we went for a drive to visit Veteran's Falls, which were nice, and then a reservior that I had camped near as a kid (at Twin Bridges Park) but don't remember very well. If you look closely at the picture of the dam you can see one of the big pipes is leaking - that was a bit disconcerting. After church (found a tick on my leg in church, but kept my language in check) and dinner, we headed back to the cabin and watched a movie. Sunday morning I visited a nearby abandoned farm, then we hung out at the cabin and packed up (and Mom showed us a lot of cool pictures of her childhood) and then headed back home.

Glad I decided to ride my bike into work...

...otherwise I would have missed these. In other news, Kris got her braces off today (for now). Tomorrow she gets a retainer.

VBS setup

Vacation Bible School starts on Sunday. The decor theme is sort of a Louisiana swamp. We have been decorating the preschooler room that Karen will be in charge of. There is also a picture of the main gathering area.

40th anniversary

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. Here are a few other 2009 anniversaries:

10th of my daughter's birth

40th of Woodstock
40th of Sesame Street

50th of statehood of Hawaii and Alaska

50th of the integrated circuit

The moon has proved very difficult for me to photograph over the years. It is pretty small and, when the sky is dark, the moon is so bright by contrast that most features get washed out. Here is one of a lunar eclipse on campus (with a Jupiter model in the foreground) and a couple of a dawn moonset over the Olympic Mountains. That is a kindergarten Kristine in the foreground.

Rochelle Railroad Park

Friday morning, on our trip to my parents' cabin in Wisconsin, we stopped at the Rochelle Railroad Park (in Rochelle, IL, not far from the intersection of I39 and I88). See: http://www.rochellerailroadpark.org/history.html. I think trains are kind of nice to watch, so I was curious to see what the fuss was all about. The park sits next to an intersection (two sets of tracks cross two sets of tracks to make a diamond) of a couple major rail lines. At least 80 trains roll by this spot each day; we saw two in the short time we were there. The park has an assortment of things to entertain the family as well as hard core train fanatics. The people there that morning tended to be retirees (mostly male) and a surprising number of young adolescent boys (no indication of being Boy Scouts). Quite a few had video cameras and tripods. We basically stopped and looked around, watched a train roll through, and left, but we could see how someone really into trains might really enjoy this place...like me on a rock hunt! We continued on up to the cabin in the unusually cool and occasionally wet weather. Kris had a good week with Grandma and Grandpa Campbell up there. That night we all watched a couple videos.

Illinois River pic

Ate dinner and took a stroll along Grandview Drive in Peoria tonight. It is believed that the Mississippi River used to flow through this channel, but an Ice Age glacier rerouted it.

Blogging for a year

I started this blog a year ago (not 150 years ago as this nearly six year old picture suggests). According to the software this is my 161st entry - doesn't seem like that many. I'm not sure who all looks at this blog, but I hope you are enjoying it. Not a whole lot to report. Kris is visiting relatives in Chicago and northern WI. Karen and I are being dull, but busy, here. Picked our 4th cutting of lettuce, 18th and 19th yellow beans, first reddish tomato, and first (and perhaps only) zucchini tonight. Yesterday, I was surprised to find (and eat) two blackberries in the woods down the street. The rest were pretty green like I expected.

More of the same

More decorating for VBS; more airshow. I got to see a Harrier jump-jet take off vertically, which was pretty cool (in the background of the first pic, the one on the ground in the foreground is also a Harrier). Funny moment: After the closest Thunderbird pass to my spot (from behind) that I thought would take out my right eardrum (I was too busy being dumbstruck to use the camera), a guy nearby commented "I think the pilot forgot to shave."

Thunderbirds!

Today Karen and I helped decorate for Vacation Bible School (in a couple of weeks). We also stepped outside occasionally to watch the air show. Those planes are hard to track both with the camera and the eyes! Note the thunderbirds painted on the bottom of the Thunderbirds. After all this we went to church and then went to dinner with the Bosmas to celebrate Lidia's 17th birthday.

Kris and Karen visit Chicago

Kris and Karen visited my sister in Chicago today.

Air show this weekend

First pic is of flowers along Farmington Road on the bike ride in (I still do that on occasion). The Prairie Air Show is running at the Peoria airport this weekend. We did some weeding at St. Anthony's tonight, which is about a block from where the Air Force F-16 Thunderbirds are parked. We walked over to take a look at the planes, and some friendly strangers invited us up onto their deck to look at them. It was funny because the fortune in my cookie at dinner in Bartonville tonight said "A stranger near you will soon be your friend". The Navy also has a couple of F-18s at the show. After we got home tonight Kris and I caught a bunch of fireflies and a toad.

Happy 4th of July!

It was rainy for much of the day today. We went to a parade in West Peoria and got lots of soggy candy. The rain finally let up after church tonight, so we went with the Bosmas down to the riverfront and watched Red, White, and Boom. They did not have the air show, and the clouds were so low that some of the sparks from the high shots went into clouds, but we had a good time.

July 4 approaches

As someone who likes pyrotechnics, the Fourth of July is a lot of fun. This morning at work in addition to many more subdued experiments I tested a double hydrogen balloon explosion demo. It worked quite well. This afternoon while we were out shopping in East Peoria we stopped by the river where fireworks are planned for tomorrow night. A little while ago we played with some sparklers that we bought today. I like the look of enjoyment on Kris's face.