It is 1964. Imagine, for a moment, being a young student from Korea, Vietnam, or Jamaica. You arrive in an unfamiliar small town in rural America to attend a university with 12,000 other – mostly American – students. The culture is distinctively Midwestern and the food is unusual. You have limited access to familiar and…
I count myself blessed to live in the same place my ancestors settled over 200 years ago. Just a short drive south of my hometown are rolling hills and fertile fields. Each time I make the drive, I realize why my ancestors chose here to settle and build their lives and families. This region is…
My girlfriends and I took a weekend trek to Tennessee to visit part of the whiskey trail. On a weekend trek, we only managed to get to two distilleries! We were in the Fayetteville area the weekend of their Host of Christmas Past event and spent time wandering the town square eating from every food…
I wanted to share a few photos from the Memorial Day ceremony at Woodlawn Cemetery in Carbondale, Illinois. Woodlawn is our oldest cemetery and is where all of the founding fathers were laid to rest. Our ceremony includes laying wreathes on their graves, along with other veterans. Next year will mark the 150th anniversary of…
September in Southern Illinois can be hot or cold … or both on the same day! Autumn approaches, regardless, and pumpkins and apples are ripe for the picking. Noodle, Grandma Debbie, and I went pumpkin picking today. We mostly picked from the piles of already picked pumpkins … but I’m okay with that! These are pretty…
One of our first adventures this summer was to Blueberry Hill Farm this past weekend where Noodle was able to pick strawberries for the first time! She also took advantage of my camera to begin her summer photo project. This was a girls-only outing and Grandma Debbie and Aunt Steph went along. We picked strawberries,…
When Noodle was about 3 years old, we bought her a VTech Kidizoom Camera for Christmas. She loves it. It doesn’t take the best photos, but for a toddler who’s just playing photographer, it’s perfect. It’s rugged, which is good because it was dropped repeatedly. When she was 5, Grandma Debbie (my mom) bought her…
My Grandpa Raines always took care to place flags on grave sites of his veteran ancestors … my mom would handle flowers for the rest. Grandpa’s people are buried in Boucher Cemetery in Murphysboro, Illinois … his mom, grandparents and many of his siblings. He would always visit on Memorial Day weekend ……