Unique things in my town!

The other day I went for a walk around the neighborhood and I ended up in the golf course. It was pretty barren. I picked up a dozen or so golf balls....Brett says that they might want them back! I hope not. I promised my dad that he could have them for the next time he is here! Anyway, I saw some interesting sites. This is a tree that looks like it was hit by lightning. Keep in mind, while you are looking at it, that Brett is 6 feet tall. That gives you an idea how tall it is! But imagine how tall it was before the lightning struck it!

In addition to lots of fake deer in people's lawns, there also is alot of patriotism. This is one example of that! It is actually pretty close to life size. But it doesn't have an American flag on the pole, it has an MIA flag. I am not sure what I think about it, but I think whoever painted it was pretty talented! (or they had an overhead projector that they blew it up with!)

Lego Man

Lego mania runs amok at our house! I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of Andrew and his favorite pastime! He loves legos and his most recent acquisition was some sort of Star Wars warship thingy... He used to let his dad help him, but now he has to do it himself. This one was pretty hard, but he kept at it until it was all done! The Star Wars universe is alive and well in Andrew's room!

A tisket, a tasket....a Corn Basket?

Now, you all know that I do not come from a small town, not like this one. I was rather amazed then, when I was driving west of town and came across this really cool corn basket. I really thought (and part of me still does) this was someone's wonderful idea for being creative with their corn. I could imagine the mom and children working hard to make this big basket. I think that they should put flowers in it or even better, large plastic eggs. (just in time for Easter!)I was really disappointed after I was told by my ever pratical husband, that this is not the whimsical basket I thought it was....it is a duck blind. Yep, a duck blind. Boy, I was really sad.I mean seriously, are the ducks fooled by the big corn basket with the people sitting in it? Maybe they should put flowers in it and hide. Then the ducks would think it was just a basket of flowers? You think?
It would take alot of time to weave all this together.

I would have walked closer, but it was muddy - "sink in to your ankles" muddy.

So, I stayed in the car. Maybe the next time I drive by, there will be some hunters in it.

Or some ducks, laughing hysterically.

From this angle, it looks like it might be a boat. It is kind of "boat" shaped, you know?

Stick a mast and a sail on it, and you are good to go!

Ahhh, life in a small town.

Area Coordinators come for a visit!

The area coordinator's came for a visit at the beginning of the month. Frank and Linda Distad and Jim and Jan Barnhart. We had a great time of planning for our Area Fellowships and other stuff. We also had fun playing games one night. Linda, Jan and I played pretty good together as a team for Mad Gab.

Jim, Frank and Brett played together pretty well. It is a fun game, but really hard for me!

Can you guess what this one is?

(the answer is at the end of this entry)

Is Frank bored? I don't know....

What is that smirk on Brett's face?

Uh-oh, I don't know if Brett knows the answer.

Speaking of answer..... Buns of Steel.

New Church in Mt. Morris

Well, AMF has started many different kinds of ministries around the United States, but we haven't had the opportunity to start one quite like this. I like the Potato Bar Idea, but I am not too keen on the type of church this is.

Mt. Morris, where new ideas are always welcome.....

Hometown Pictures!

And here by request, are pictures of Mt. Morris. Now, if you don't like looking at pictures of scenery, than you probably should move on. I was asked to post pictures of where I live so that people could visualize where we are...so here we go!

Mt. Morris is a pretty cool little town. It has great huge trees and a park. It is very pretty in the fall and really has some friendly people. This amphitheater thing is in the park right in the center of town. It also has the Freedom Bell. I haven't been down to read the information, so I am not sure what it is all about. We are very patriotic! I have heard that the 4th of July celebration here is amazing!

This is the Mt. Morris Post Office. They are very nice and friendly. We really like our mail lady! She gives doggie treats to Ty.

This is the Evangelical Free Church of Mt. Morris. We go here and we like it. It is over 50 years old. I think that the very hard pews are original!

Another view out of my window. With my knee and the cold, I wasn't going to get out of the car!

This is our house. The upstairs left window is Sam's room. The Middle is Andrew, the right is the master bedroom. Downstairs left is the office, middle is living room. The squirrel lives in the tree above the office! I just saw them, they are fat and fuzzy!

Looking west down our street.

Another shot looking west. We have good neighbors.

Mt. Morris has a stoplight. This actually is Hwy. 72.

Downtown Mt. Morris. There is a Hallmark Store with a florist, a couple of bars and not much else.

Our water tower. It is pretty cool to drive around and see all the different water towers. I think I should make a coffee table book...."Water Towers of the Midwest". Our tower is right by the library. It is alot bigger than it looks.


Oregon High School - Where the boys go. This is the old building. It has a huge new gym complex behind it. It is kind of a neat old building - reminds me of Corvallis, Oregon High School.

Well, there you have it, the old hometown. I will try to post more pictures as the seasons change. Even though we are far from family, every time we travel, when we come back, we are always glad to see Mt. Morris. Life is slower here - we were just complaining about having to drive 20 minutes to a DQ - but that is probably for the best! Sometimes we go stir crazy and have to get into the big city, but for the most part, it is quite a nice place to live!

It's been awhile!

I know it has been awhile since I have updated this blog, but it has been busy. I haven't been able to sit at my desk too comfortably until this week (because of my knee). So, here we go!

I put these pictures on my facebook page, but for those of you NOT on facebook (and you know who you are...) here are the pictures of Andrew's 18th birthday! Can you all believe it? He is an adult. That is totally scary!

We don't really do birthday cake at our house, so we had ice cream instead. Andrew picked out cookies and cream and we put one of my votive candles on it. (No birthday candles to be found!)

We had presents...this is the Disney Scene it game...He rocks at this! So if you come to visit, we will test your Disney trivia...if you have the stomach for it!

It was a Star Wars birthday. Andrew must own enough Star Wars figures to populate his own universe. Come to think of it, since he seems to live in his own universe most of the time, he probably does. I can hear those Star Wars fans out there saying "too many star wars figures? You can never have too many star wars figures".

Trust me, you can.

Legos from Nick and Alena - always a hit. If you combined the Legos star wars and the regular star wars....yikes!

Val and Joe came from Waukegan to visit! We loved having relatives...Val is Sam and Andrew's cousin. It was fun. Joe is an awesome guitar player and he and Sam jammed for a bit. Val is always fun to have around! We got all caught up!

Just so you know...Andrew is a legal adult now, but I am petitioning the court here for guardianship. We are in the process and will let you know how things go. I don't anticipate any problems. It is all a new learning experience for me. The Sheriff will come to the house and subpeona Andrew. Brett and I thought about staging a fight on the front lawn so that when the Sheriff comes, the neighbors would think we were getting in trouble....but we decided that it wouldn't be good for the reputation of the mission...or our family....

I will try to post more soon. My second job starts really in earnest this week, so I am busier. Will try to get more pictures from Christmas up...

oh, Happy New Year!