Nearby fire

Yesterday afternoon, a house about a half mile to the east of our house burned spectacularly.  From our house we could hear sirens and explosions and see and smell smoke.  Bits of burnt cardboard landed in our yard and at one point I could see bits of paper tumbling in the sky like confetti.  We had to travel to town not long after this all started and we wound up driving within a half a block of  the house engulfed in flames - never seen a house burning that hard for real before.  Even three hours later the road was still blocked off.  We found out later that a woman died in the fire - an article describing this is posted on the Peoria Journal Star's website: http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150926/NEWS/150929462
I stopped by the house today, not surprisingly, there is not much left. While I was looking, a cousin of the woman who died stopped by and we talked a bit.  The woman who passed away was a widow who had lived much of her life close by to her house,  she had a child and grandchildren, and she loved doing crafts.  It is ironic that the bright red fire hydrant so very close to the house was useless because when the fire department tried to use it, a water main broke.  The news tonight says the woman apparently died of smoke inhalation.

PCS Homecoming 2015

Kristine and her friend Jared went to the PCS homecoming dinner tonight, and there were pictures in the gardens at Illinois Community College.  We took pictures of other family members, too.  Here are some of my favorites.  One very sad note:  the mother of one of Kristine's classmates passed away from cancer tonight.

"Fishing" Trip

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for all of us, but today Katie and I made another foray into the woods in our neighborhood.  Our primary mission was to catch little minnows that I have been seeing in the streams to see how they will fare in our little fish tank.  Turns out they were pretty hard to catch!  We caught a couple of six-inch long fishes (released), a frog (released), a tiny minnow, and a tiny crayfish.  We made it to the little waterfall that I think is so neat.  We also found some sizeable plant fossils in the creek bed.  Note the carbonized log pieces extending from Katie's feet in the picture.

Lake Storey (Part 2)

On July 25, we traveled to the Galesburg area to a reservoir called Storey Lake to see a balloon festival - it got rained out, but we thought the lake was nice.  Today was the seventh day of highs reaching into the 90s (it will hopefully change tomorrow, the dry weather and the heat seems to be browning the cornstalks quite a bit) so we traveled back out to the lake to check out the beach there.  First we stopped at a new Happy Joe's Pizza in Galesburg.  The atmosphere is a bit more modern than the one we are used to than the one I grew up with in Green Bay, WI, but the pizza was still yummy and we stuffed ourselves.  Lake Storey was a bit green  and not the cleanest lake around but it was pleasantly cool.  The speakers were playing 80s music, and Karen and I enjoyed trying to figure out how things were likely different there now versus the 80s.  The differences seemed to be pretty subtle:  electronics, fashion, types of lawn chairs, etc.  There was a water slide near the lake, too. Galesburg's Stearman fly-in starts this weekend, so we got to see a number of biplanes flying around.

Birthday, Anniversary, and School Starts

Last weekend, Karen and I celebrated an anniversary, and I celebrated a birthday.  My parents also visited that weekend. One of the things we all did was visit the Illinois State Fair last Sunday.  This week, the girls started school at Peoria Christian, and I started (teaching) school at Bradley University.  To add to the craziness of the week, Karen came down with shingles.  It has been rough for her (and frustrating to miss work, especially after missing some days the week before due to jury duty), but she has been toughing it out and seems to be on the mend.

Trip to the woods and other late summer pictures

Last Sunday I went fossil hunting the woods and found some nice fossils and visited a small waterfall.  On Thursday at about 1 am the family drove a few miles into the countryside to watch the Perseid meteor shower.  We saw some bright yellow meteors with glowing trails.  Our apple tree has some apples that are ready for picking, and we have had potatoes and carrots, too.

Southeast Trip

We took a long trip to the American southeast.  I had a conference (ChemEd 2015) to present at in the Atlanta area and then we traveled to Virginia Beach to see Karen’s family (I had not been there for six years).  We did lots of things, so I will just give a summary.

-Monday, July 27 – Traveled from Peoria, IL, to Kennesaw, GA.  We stopped in Metropolis, IL, to see the statues of Superman and the TARDIS.  We made a short side trip to Alabama to visit that state, and Georgia was a new state to us, too. That night, at 3 am, there was a (false) fire alarm at the hotel where we stayed.

-Tuesday, July 28 – We all visited the World of Coca-Cola (museum) in Atlanta.  It was nice, and as expected there was quite a bit of company propaganda.  In the international tasting area we tried the amazingly awful “Beverley” soda.  Later we visited the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield and climbed the mountain in the summer heat.  I attended the conference, which started that day.   We found a Mellow Mushroom pizza place for supper (there was one in Austin, TX, that have visited in the past).

-Wednesday, July 29 – I gave my talk at the conference.  Karen, Kris, and Katie attended the Georgia Aquarium, and thought it was great.  Among other things, they saw whale sharks and manta rays.

-Thursday, July 30 – I attended the conference and had lunch with a former co-worker.  Karen, Kris , and Katie visited the CNN headquarters and then attended Zoo Atlanta. Among other things, they saw a couple of panda bears.

-Friday, July 31 – We traveled from Kennesaw to Black Mountain, NC.  Along the way we drove through South Carolina (the third new state for us) and Karen, Kris, and Katie visited the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, NC.

-Saturday, August 1 – We traveled from Black Mountain to Virginia Beach, VA, and stayed at Karen’s sister’s and mother’s house.

-Sunday, August 2 – We visited Karen’s aunt’s church, where Kristine got stung on the finger by a wasp (it just sort of came out of nowhere).  We were very concerned because she has had an allergic reaction before, but thankfully the swelling went down with ice and Benadryl.  Later we visited Karen's grandma, went to a pool party at Karen’s uncles house, and then saw the Minions movie.

-Monday, August 3 – We visited Jamestown and Yorktown historic sites.  We only stopped briefly at the national park locations, rather, we stopped longer at the state-run centers, where there were more hands-on activities and reconstructions.  It was probably more kid-friendly that way.  By the time we finished, the Virginia Beach area traffic was pretty tough, so we hung out at the beach in Yorktown for a while.  We saw, but did not get stung by, sea nettles.

-Tuesday, August 4 – We visited the Atlantic Ocean seashore.  It was windy, which helped beat the heat.  The waves were fun to play in, and we say some distant dolphins.  Later we went to a pool party at Karen’s aunts house.

-Wednesday, August 5 – We traveled from Virginia Beach to Indianapolis, IN, to stay at the house of one of Karen’s high school friends.

-Thursday, August 6 – We traveled from Indianapolis to Peoria, IL.