All Hallows Eve

On Friday, Kristine turned in her Egypt project, a model of an Egyptian warship. For fun, we added a couple of Star Ward figures. Kris has been joking that Princess Leia is supposed to be Cleopatra. Yesterday we went to Apple Blosson Farm north of Peoria. The produce was pretty picked over, but we had fun. We have been doing various winter prep chores around the house this weekend. Today we processed our pumpkins to make pumpkin bread. I cut the pumpkins in front of Katie to see the look on her face and when I was about the open the first one I asked if she knew what is inside a pumpkin. She said yeah, seeds. So much for the big revelation - apparently this was covered already in preschool!

National Chemistry Week

National Chemistry Week was last week and was chock full of activities. We have all been pretty busy lately. We did have a campfire Saturday night and had some s'mores. We found Kristine's old dog costume in the attic - it is big on Katie and small for Kris.

Spirit of Peoria

Today we finished up a first round of raking in the backyard. Leaves are falling, but the colors are not very spectacular this year. Perhaps it takes a lot of cold to make the leaves change color (and it has been pretty mild so far), but the change in hours of daylight makes the leaves fall. Karen acquired tickets for a 1.5 hour cruise on the paddleboat Spirit of Peoria. We went this afternoon and saw some color. Katie liked to dance to the music before the cruise started, but was a bit intimidated by the big paddlewheel when it moved. This particular cruise was to feature the spreading of ashes upon the river (we thought they were those of a Vietnam vet) complete with 21 gun salute. Kris and I were indoors when that happened, but Karen and Katie got very lightly dusted with ashes blowing around in the wind. We thought that was kind of creepy to be dusted with the ashes of a dead person, but we have since found out that they were ashes of burned flags, see: http://www.pjstar.com/news/x171129411/Tazewell-Military-Rites-Team-spreads-ashes-of-American-flags-in-Illinois-River.

Slippery Rock in the Fall

These are pictures from a place called Slippery Rock near my parents cabin in NE Wisconsin. Here a creek flows over a smooth granite surface on its way to a small waterfall. During the summer, kids (and grown-ups) slide down the rock suface. These pix show what the falls area looks like in the autumn when there are not a lot of people around.

9 months of Katie

We first met Katie 9 months ago. Here are some recent pix of her.

October starts

October is one of my favorite months of the year with the cooler temps and leaves turning and harvestime. Hmmm...lets see... Kris's soccer postseason ended earlier this week in a tough loss. On Friday, Karen, Kris and Katie were in the Limestone High School homecoming parade repesenting the preschool that Karen has worked, Kris has attended, and Katie currently attends. Friday and Saturday evening Kris has birthday parties to attend, plus the whole family attended one at Rainbow Play Systems on late Saturday afternoon. On Saturday morning and afternoon I went to a meeting in Springfield. I do not have any pictures to show for it, but I wish I had taken one of the flatbed truck going in the other direction that had what looked like a big white rocket nose cone sporting a NASA logo. Yesterday evening, while Kris was at her birthday party across the river, I took a stroll along a nature trail along the river. This is the trail where I have taken pictures of high-water river ice clinging to tree trunks. The place looks a lot different in the early fall. This morning I saw frost on a rooftop, but none on the ground. After Sunday school and church and errands, we finally picked our one pumpkin. Katie and Kris already had decorated it on the vine with a marker.