Such a Sunday

What a wonderful sermon at church this morning; the whole series has been so good so far.  

We all really needed it.

Pastor Lisa had candy conversation hearts handed out to each person in a baggy.  Then we could go forward and smash our hard heart with a hammer and leave it there and pick up a soft [gummy] heart to leave with.  It was pretty therapeutic and really meaningful.

After church, Kamoni came with us, and we stopped for lunch at Culver's. The kids were singing the national anthem with Midnight Blues in Peoria at the Rivermen hockey game, and we got there quite early.  It was nice outside, so we walked around Peoria for an hour.

We went down to the riverfront, but didn't have enough time to go into the museum and check it out.  Caeden and Kamoni found this lookout point and decided to "emulate" the scene from the Titanic movie.  

They don't look much like Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett, but they are funny.

We came upon the giant American Gothic sculpture and they decided to do "heart hands."  Oh boys.

They need their own suitcase and pitchfork, I think.

We came upon the Holocaust Memorial and were stunned.

We had noticed this sculpture on our way past the Civic Center at the beginning of our walk, and the boys stopped to read about it on our way back in.  It is called "Knockin' on Freedom's Door" by artist Preston Jackson, and it honors Peoria's role in the Underground Railroad.

We went into the Civic Center to wait for the rest of the Midnight Blues crew, and the boys just had to ride the escalator up and down.  I love that they enjoy the little things in life.

I enjoy watching the zamboni!

The Rivermen were playing the Evansville Thunderbolts today.

Midnight Blues and some Rivermen folks "backstage" before singing the anthem...

They did an excellent job singing!

Fun in the stands...

It was a really good game!

There were at least 6 intense fights, and the last one was pretty gruesome...One Peoria player had his head repeatedly bashed into the ice until it started bleeding profusely.  The Evansville player who did this was ejected from the game, and it took about 10 minutes to try to get the blood off/out of the ice. It was intense, and we hope the guy is ok--definitely concussed at minimum!  Yikes!

Peoria won the game, and we went back to Bloomington-Normal.  We were going to have supper at Avanti's but it was super busy, so we hit up Monical's instead--no disappointment to me!  Yum!

Kamoni was a little tired of having his picture taken, but he should be proud to have survived a whole day with us!  We loved having him around!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a little different for us this year, but so sweet. 

Sylvia was asked by our friend Jamie to play her horn with the church choir he directs at the Presbyterian church in Fairbury.

We dropped her off for rehearsal, then went to Family Dollar to pick up scotch tape and some last minute Christmas supplies--you know, like a 2 pound bag of SourPatch Kids.

When we arrived back at the church, we went in a little early, and the choir was still rehearsing.  A man from the congregation greeted us and pointed at me and Annah. He told us we should sing with the choir.  I don't know how he knew we were singers, but when he said something to Jamie, Jamie said he would love for us to join them. So we did!

The piece the choir sang was All Is Well--one of my favorites.  

 Sylvia did a beautiful job playing her horn!

The service was really nice.
In his message, the pastor included this recording of of a TV broadcast watched by over 500 million people: 50 years ago today, the US astronauts of Apollo 8 reading the first 10 verses of Genesis as they watched the lunar sunrise of the earth! So awesome!

Receiving candles for the singing of Silent Night

On our way home, we drove around Colfax and enjoyed all the great Christmas lights.  My pictures snapped through the car window are no good, but there were some really cute displays!  We enjoyed it so much and were impressed the little village of Colfax had so many great lights!

I had a little wrapping to finish, but not much.

Had to keep the tradition of watching Polar Express on Christmas Eve!

And even the tradition of Dad reading Moosletoe!

It's fun playing Santa, because I'm the first one to see this pretty sight.

The angel said to them, 

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven,and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

- Luke 2:10-14

Getting there

Although Jeremy really wanted to get up and at 'em and on the road as early as possible today, he was kind and let the kids sleep a bit.  We made it down to breakfast around 8:30, and apparently that was the time to be there!  I guess everyone who stays at Drury knows they have pretty good breakfast.  We all had enough to eat, and Sylvia got her breakfast potatoes.

She is a huge fan of Drury potatoes!  And they were just what she was looking forward to!

Trying to wake up...

Or not trying super hard to wake up...

We were on the road by 9:30, some of us still not fully awake...

The kids watched a movie.

Much of the drive looked like this today:

And this:

Within an hour, we'd made it to Alabama.

This rocket at the Alabama Welcome Center has become a familiar landmark.

Crossing the Tennessee River

at the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge

The girls took some of these pictures.  Annah appreciated the hills and more mountainous views we don't see around the prairies of central Illinois.

I got a text from my brother when he received his 40th birthday gift from us.  (By the way, Travis, none of the kids want to claim any part in the gift selection.)  

My mom also checked in with us to see if we had arrived at our destination yet.  

Not quite, but we were enjoying the journey!

We crossed a bridge and noticed the creek it went over was labeled Murder Creek.  It piqued our interest, so I looked it up and we learned about how it got its name.  Quite the history lesson!

4:29pm, Bay Minette, Alabama

We got stuck in a couple hours worth of slowdowns on the interstate today, and we were very anxious to get to the beach.

5:02pm, getting closer!

Palm treeeeeeeeeeeeees!!!!!

Because we were arriving quite a bit later than expected, I had Jeremy drop me off at Walmart to get the beginning groceries for the house, and he and the kids went to unpack at the house.

They arrived!

As I was wrapping up shopping, Jeremy called me and said they'd gotten into the house and unpacked, and he was on his way back to pick me up. I texted the kids to ask for a selfie.  They were pretty happy to be in our beach-happy-place!  

By the time we got back to the beach house, unpacked groceries and baked some frozen pizzas, it was  pretty much dark once we walked to down to the beach.  We used our phone flashlights to get down to the water!

It took 2 days, but our feet are in the sand now!

Time to relax!