I didn’t sleep well last night, but I think Jada did at least. I heard the girls up around 6am too as usual. I made breakfast for everyone (eggs again) and started on the last of our laundry finally. Jada’s workout shorts were still in the pile, and we couldn’t go for our walk without them, so I got them started as early as possible. We went for I would guess a 2 mile walk out to the high school through the park and back. I was staying up on the Tour de France on Velonews’ live update text feed since I can’t watch Versus here. (Current World road racing champion Cadel Evans took to the Yellow Jersey today and Lance lost 13 minutes.) My sister and her husband came for the day while the girls were doing their piano practice. They were playing school with Nana, so we made the piano part of the school day music program. After lunch, we all watched the World Cup finals from start to the final whistle of the last over time period as Spain won. I kept pointing out different things to Ellen that we work on for her soccer team in hopes that if she sees it on the screen, it’ll translate to something she’ll think about on the soccer pitch.
Ellen and Phoebe gave me their birthday gifts before the match. Ellen wrote up a little booklet of poems and a short story. Phoebe gave me something that she found upstairs in Nana and Bapa’s house that I’m pretty sure I made when I was in Cub Scouts. It was cute. We went out to dinner at Avanti’s in Pekin. It rained a little bit while we were out, so I was glad I brought in the laundry that had been hanging from the line. (I wish I had a place for that back in Oregon, but there’s probably some provision against it in the neighborhood code.) I opened presents when we got home before we put the girls to bed. After they were upstairs in bed, we got out the traditional strawberry icebox pie for dessert. It was light and fluffy and pink as always. It’s still my favorite dessert. We chatted a bit before Mandy and Nathan left for home. We’re all very tired still...probably the sugar coma setting in.
July 12: Pekin, IL
The girls were up early jumping and running around upstairs making quite a bit of noise which seemed to only wake me up. I made oatmeal for breakfast, enough for everyone, but the girls only wanted to eat firsts when at home they eat at least 2 helpings, and then only Nana wanted to eat some. I had some too, but it wasn’t enough to use it all up. I’ll have to make less next time, and feed it into the next batch. I let Jada sleep in until 7:40am, but I wanted to go for a walk, so she skipped her breakfast so we could go walk right away. We didn’t go as far today, just out to the park and two laps around the Lagoon, but Jada did think to bring some money to stop by Walgreens to pick up some cards. We also found goggles for the girls to use swimming on the rest of our trip. We were lucky to find it since summer is over according to the stores. It’s time for school now. I unpacked the box and took it off the car so I can take it to a car wash. I took out all the Thermarests to air out and hung the sleeping bags on the clothes lines. The grass was too wet to put the tent up.
Jada and I made a trip to the post office and out to drop off pictures at Walgreens again to get printed out so that the girls can start on their scrap books of our trip. (I think Auntie Mandy might come down tomorrow to help out.) I got to use one of my birthday presents to take the picture files over there. It’s a Obi-Wan Kenobi Minibot USB key. We had a quick lunch, and then we headed off to the Dragon Land Water Park in Pekin for some swimming. We really like the slides there. I went down a few times with Ellen, and Bapa went down with Phoebe. Then Ellen went down on her own, and I went down the slide for no tubes. Ellen and Phoebe both tried that as well, and then later they went down on the double tube together. Phoebe found a little friend to play with, and she went down the double slide with that little girl. We were there for almost 3 hours, and so far, it looks like none of us got burned.
When we came home from the pool, I spent some time putting the Thermarests away and scrubbing the camp stoves. I think the problem we had with the camp skillet was due to the mechanism that attaches to the canister since the canister itself tested out fine. I’ll see if I can pick up another one at a sporting goods store here in Peoria if I can to try it out before we’re off again. Otherwise, we’ll just have to give up on some of our meal plans while we’re camping the rest of the time which would be disappointing.
Nana made a delicious pork loin dinner which the girls really enjoyed. They asked for seconds. Phoebe had hers with mustard just like Bapa. Then when they were supposed to be getting ready for bed, they were messing around and Phoebe got her toe run over by a door. So we put them to bed early. They were in bed by 6:30pm. Jada and I went out to see Toy Story 3 in Peoria for a 7:30pm show. It’s amazing how a 20 year absence helps you forget where things are. We found our way there, but in the dark on the way home, I missed a couple turns so it took us longer than we would have preferred to get back to the house. The movie was really good. Pixar continues to prove they are the best movie makers in the business animated or otherwise. We got to back around 10pm, but that didn’t stop me from having another piece of strawberry icebox pie.
July 13: Pekin, IL
We all slept in this morning. Or at least, the girls didn’t make any noise if they did wake up early. I didn’t get out of bed until 6:30am. I made eggs, and then went up to get the girls at 7am. They were awake but quiet. The fireworks started when we asked them to do their piano practice. Ellen started yelling at us, and then while she was in timeout, Phoebe decided to behave exactly the same way so she had to be in time out too. They did get their piano done eventually, and we left for Uftring Subaru so I could get an oil change and my tires rotated. Nana and Bapa followed along so that after we dropped off the car, we could go on to Lakeview Museum.
We went to see an exhibit called “The Art of the Brick” which is a series of sculptures by artist Nathan Sawaya made entirely of Lego bricks. It was a pretty small exhibit, but it had some interesting pieces in it including full sized human forms, full color portraits, and surreal sculptures of human forms in odd states. My favorite was a tree and tree portrait together that mirrored each other in 2-D and 3-D. My other favorite was called An Artists’ View with all black and white paint, fruit bowl, floor, and small chest of drawers with a canvas with a colorful “painting”. It was entirely Lego down to the black and white checked floor. I liked it, and I wish there had been more of them. There was also an area set up for visitors to make their own creations. Ellen made a full scene. She only needed my help for the hair on the person. Phoebe made a person too.
We had Avanti’s for lunch since, you know, we were sort of close to one in Peoria, and then we went back to pick up the car from the service center. We spent the afternoon mostly lounging out of the heat. I had put up the tent in the back yard to let it air out and sweep the dead bugs out of it. Then I read for a bit and fell asleep on the couch. Jada and Bapa also fell asleep. Apparently during that time, Phoebe had come into the front room where Bapa and I were napping, and she told Nana that she might go upstairs to rest too. When I found her, she was asleep in her bed. She is surprisingly responsible sometimes. She woke up a little grumpy, but I think the girls have just been running on a sleep deficit for so long, they need some rest.
We worked on journals before dinner, and I took the tent down to pack away. Mandy came over for dinner. Following that, we all went out to Putt the Magic Dragon golf course for a quick 18 holes. Phoebe and I each got holes in one, and Jada and I ended up tied for first place. After Mandy left, Jada and I went out foraging for supplies that we’ll need for the second half of our trip. We found just about everything at the Krogers. They own Fred Meyer now, so we knew we could probably find most of everything there. We just can’t find Nancy’s yogurt this far east. Looking forward to swimming tomorrow now that most of our burns from the first day have subsided.
July 14: Pekin, IL
It was another hot day in central Illinois. I didn’t even go check on the girls until almost 7am, but I think I heard them around 6:45am. Still, considering we were to bed an hour and a half late last night, that wasn’t too bad. I made oatmeal for breakfast again. Afterward I did a little bit of a work out, then Jada and I went for a walk. We did a mile around James Field at the end of the block, and then we walked downtown to the post office for some stamps, and then back up to Walgreens before returning home for around a 2 mile walk. I got Ellen started on piano, and Phoebe finished hers as well. Neither did it without argument, but we got through it while Bapa mowed the lawn and Nana went to the store.
We went to the pool again. It was pretty busy, but not overly so. We went down the slide a bunch of times again. Jada and I even got to go down together once. Nana and Bapa just stayed in the shade on the grass. The girls both had to work on their swimming strokes before going off on their own, and they are starting to get back to where they were after their swimming classes, so that’s encouraging. Ellen even requested to work some more on them later without prompting. Phoebe’s shoulder had been burned a bit last time, but it looked better. Same for Ellen’s shoulders. My back, apparently, looked radio active as my mom said she could see the burn quite clearly when I was on the other side of the pool and up on the slide platform. (Jada suggested that I consider wearing a shirt, but I didn’t take her advice.)
After showering, the girls worked on their scrapbooks for a while. Then Auntie Mandy and Uncle Nathan came over for dinner. We had a yummy spaghetti and meatball dinner. We talked and looked through pictures, and we got the girls to bed pretty close to on time. After Nathan and Mandy left, we went out for ice cream.
July 15: Pekin, IL
Phoebe slept in today, and Ellen didn’t wake her up when I went to get her around 6:50am. Ellen ate the left overs of the previous two day’s oatmeal with blue berries, and then she started on her piano. Phoebe finally came down around 7am for cereal. After Ellen finished her piano, she worked on her journal while Jada and I went for a walk. It was already 90 degrees by this time of the morning and the humidity was probably 90% as well. It’s been like this all week. Of course, last time we were here in the summer, it was unseasonably cool, so at least it’s been good to go to the swimming pool every day. I took the car to the Pekin Downtown car wash. They completely missed the the top of the car it seemed, but they did finish it when I pointed it out. They missed some bugs on the front of the car too, but Saturday, I’ll just be adding to it again anyway.
We went to the pool in the afternoon. Nana and Bapa didn’t come this time since neither was going to go into the pool. Ellen’s strokes are really improving. She’s getting her arms around more quickly. We rode the slide several times as well before calling it a day after 2 hours there. I wore a shirt in the water today to try to keep my sun burns from getting worse. It slowed me down in the water quite a bit (and on the slide).
Once back at the house, we showered, and the girls worked some more on their scrapbooks. We went to Avanti’s for dinner and met Mandy and Nathan there. They’ve been real troopers driving 45 minutes every night this week to visit for a couple hours. We really appreciated it. After dinner, we stopped by a sporting goods store trying to find a part that we think is causing our troubles with our gas camp grill. I made several calls as well, and no one carries just that part. So, we fell back on our good friends at REI. I ordered a new one to be delivered to the flag ship store in Denver which should arrive on Thursday. That’s the day we will be going through there on our way to Estes Park. We can pick it up and exchange our broken one since we’re members. It’s just crazy enough to work.
July 16: Pekin, IL (Officially starting the second half of our trek)
It was hard to get comfortable in the night with my sunburn, so I was up early. Jada got up too so we could start on our big breakfast. I made some eggs, and Jada made pancakes. The girls were awake already before 7am too so they had some toast to tide them over until breakfast was ready. Jada also made some hard boiled eggs which we use as snacks for Ellen every day. We had hopes of seeing an old friend from grade school, but things didn’t work out. It didn’t affect our day much since we had planned to spend it getting things pulled together and doing laundry. And laundry we did. I got it all done by the afternoon, and I’m going to miss being able to hang things out to dry in the sun since it seems to work better and faster than the dryer. I won’t miss the constant 95+ temperature and humidity though.
Jada and I ran an errand and got some gas around lunch time. The girls spent the afternoon reading. I did my monthly bills online while I had the internet connection. Afterward, I had borrowed the extended version of Lord of the Rings from my sister’s husband, Nathan, earlier in the week so I could see the extra scenes, so I spent the afternoon trying to finish it up. At least the guide helpfully shows which scenes are new and which have extra footage so I could just skip directly to all of those. Before dinner, we had the car all packed again except for our personal bags which can be easily loaded in the morning.
After another yummy home cooked dinner of turkey burgers and sweet corn on the cob, we gave Bapa his early birthday present since we won’t be around for his actual birthday. The girls finished their journals and went to be by 7pm tonight with very little trouble. I made a quick trip up to Walgreens with dad so he could get his pictures from today printed, and I also wanted to get some children’s aspirin just in case since we were unprepared for Ellen’s illness on this trip. We spent the rest of the evening reading until I ran out of things to do and turned on the TV. I just needed to kill an hour until I could realistically go to bed. It’s been a fun week in Illinois. Tomorrow we head south to Collinsville, and from there we start heading west.