Corvette Funfest 2008

Two weekends-ago, we went down to Effingham for the annual Corvette Funfest, put on by Midamerica Motorworks. Heidi's dad has a Corvette, and has been attending since the festival started in 1994. This was the first time Heidi had ever been, and Matt had sooooo much fun ogling the HOT cars! Part of the sea of Corvettes...there were well over 1,000 Corvettes on display, whose owners had brought them from all over the country! There were old ones... New ones...

Red ones...

and blue ones!

Sorry, I had a Dr. Seuss moment! There were Corvettes of all ages and colors, not to mention in all sorts of condition. There were several with custom paint jobs...this one was our favorite. All of the flames were done by hand with an airbrush. Even the interior and the engine were covered with this amazing artwork.

Needless to say, we have Corvette fever! We had a blast walking through our "field of dreams-" a section of the area where there were lots of used Corvettes for sale...oh, if only! :)

Hurricane Ike hits the Midwest?!

Rain pounded down on us on Sept 14th...this is a pic from the viaduct a few blocks from our house. The water was originally 4 feet deep earlier in the day, and was down to 3 feet deep when we took this picture. Yes, that's a car stuck in the water...notice the sign- "impassible during high water!"

Cheese Festival!

Ok, we are clearly waaayyy behind most of our friends in posting about this, but here's some of our pics from the Arthur Cheese Festival. If you are ever in central Illinois on Labor Day weekend, this is a fun little festival to visit. We have gone three times now, and it was worth our 45 min drive each time!

We went with our friends Quinn and Tiffany and Clarissa, and met some more friends, Aaron and Rachel there. It seems like it is always hot on Labor Day weekend! Clarissa kept cool with her hat and lots of water.

Clarissa and her friends Taylor and Brooklyn were the youngest entrants in the youth cheese eating contest! The best part was that their parents got to keep the cheese that the kids didn't eat (so almost a pound of yummy cheese!).

Matt, Quinn, and Tiff entered the adult eating competition. Matt decided that he might just try to win the contest this year. However, about 3/4 of the way through his POUND of cheese, he changed his mind!! :)

The aftermath...too much cheese does not a happy stomach make!

Rachel and Aaron had a good time tagging along with us and taking pictures for us when we were competing in the International Cheese Curling Competition!

Look at that form! Tiff has great followthrough! So, curling cheese is similar to the Olympic sport of curling, minus the ice. One team member is the sweeper, who guides the object to the bullseye. The rest of the team hurl the object towards the bullseye and hope that the sweeper can fix their terrible throw! (oh that was just me!)

We were very glad we chose Matt for our sweeper! He helped us get a perfect 12 of 12 score! Which....drumroll please....

...ended up making us the winners!!! We came home with our wheel of Baby Swiss cheese and some t-shirts. You may have read about us in the Decatur Herald & Review...under the team name "Nibblers." Hilarious, yes, we think so too!

Clarissa is our sweeper in training... we think she's got what it takes! :)

Vacation!! Part Two

After a night's rest in Rapid City, SD, we headed out for Mount Rushmore. Our first stop was in Keystone, which is a town at the foot of the mountain. It has an "old west", well touristy old west, feel, with good food and plenty of stores to spend your money in...and huge chairs to play around on!






Mount Rushmore...what else can I say? It was quite a sight to see. There is a history center in Keystone that tells all about how the monument was actually built- it's pretty amazing. We made it through the hike down to the base of the mountain, and got back just in time for the rain to start.



After Mt. Rushmore, we went on to the Crazy Horse Memorial. The man who started building this monument actually learned to carve out of mountains from the man who built Mt. Rushmore. The whole project is funded solely by private donations...so it will be interesting to see if the monument will be done in our lifetime. The second picture is what the monument will eventually look like.




The next day, we headed north to North Dakota, to meet two of my aunts, Rita and Marlys, in Medora. We took a tour of the North Dakota Badlands in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I hear that there are almost always lots of buffalo to be seen, but since it was mating season when we were here, there were none! We did see lots of prairie dogs and some wild horses though.


We stopped in at the ND Cowboy Hall of Fame, where my paternal grandfather is an honoree. It was pretty neat to see all of the original cowboys that started their ranches in ND after the Homestead Act. My grandfather had come from Germany, and started working for a big rancher before starting his own ranch.
What do you think? Does cowboy(girl) run in my blood?? (Matt looks good!)


We had a great time with Rita and Marlys in Bismarck, ND. We had lunch at my favorite restaurant...Space Aliens- an oddity that used to only be in Bismarck, but has since expanded to a few other cities in the upper midwest.


We ate some great Ukranian food- recipes passed on to Rita from my paternal grandmother who was full-blooded Ukranian. We had borscht and beet-leaf bread, both were awesome and sooo delicious, and we made sure to take notes so that we could carry on the tradition and pass it on to our kids someday...we'll share the wealth with our friends and family for now! This is the beet leaf bread...yep that's cream on top! Oh, it's heavenly. If anyone can find some beet greens...we'll make this bread and share!


After tons of fun and reminiscing with my aunts in Bismarck, we had to (sadly) start our trip home. We could visit with them for a week and that still wouldn't be long enough! We stopped in Minneapolis on the way home for dinner. We decided to stop at the Mall of America...what a sight...and we ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp. It was worth the hike through the mall, and the wait! The food was great and we had a blast.

After dinner, we decided to work off a bit of the calories and play miniature golf...inside the mall. Most of you probably know that there's an amusement park inside the mall. The golf course is on the third floor of the mall, overlooking the amusement park. We had a lot of fun...the course was pretty difficult!

We drove a bit farther, and spent the night in Wisconsin. We finished our drive home the next day. All together, we drove 2500 miles! It was so much fun. We are so grateful to have family to welcome us and to visit along our trip. They spoiled us and we had a great time with them. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can visit again!

We had so much fun on our trip...but it is also very nice to be sleeping in our own bed again!

Vacation!!! Part One...

After a long hiatus, here's a couple big blogs for everyone to check out! We just got home from a great vacation, a road trip! We had a great time being tourists and visiting family along the way.

Our first stop was in Sioux Falls, SD. Yes, there are actually "falls" in Sioux Falls! My aunt and uncle, Ruth and Dave (also my godparents) live there, so we got to spend some time with them while we were in town.
We went to Falls Park, and then had a great lunch with Ruth and Dave at Spezia (awesome Italian!).

Later that day, we went to the Sertoma Butterfly House. What a cool place! It's basically a big indoor garden where they have hundreds of butterflies just flying around, and sometimes landing on you. They were hard to photograph, but we got a few great ones of some beautiful butterflies.
After just a couple days, we were on to our next destination...Mt. Rushmore. But we found some great sights along the way. First, in Mitchell, SD, there is the Corn Palace. Now for those of you who live in the midwest, you can all appreciate the love of corn! :) Ha Ha...sometimes it is all we see for miles and miles. This building has been decorated with murals made from corn- kernels, husks, etc, since the early 1900s. It is really quite amazing, and best of all, it's free!




After a quick visit, and some clowning around, we were on our way to the Badlands of SD.

Just after we paid our admission to the park, it started raining...sooooo we got wet!
Of course we were going to check out the views, rain or not!
After the rain, we found that it was worth getting wet, since we were able to see a beautiful rainbow.... then our camera died! :0) The joys of travelling!

Stay tuned for part 2...I'm all blogged out for tonight!