Laurie's Everyday Notions

Cruising down the highway, somewhere between Dubuque and Davenport, in a town I'd never heard of, I see this: Traveling too fast in the wrong lane, I was unable to make the turn off to investigate. I decided that I'd turn around. I needed to stretch my legs anyway. The next turn on the divided highway brought us here: We visited the Hurstville Interpretive Center first, which gave a little background of the area, before heading back to take a closer look at the kilns. The Center included a great interactive display of beekeeping plus a viewable, live "bee box", a bird display, information on area wildlife and plants, and information on how the kilns where used. Very cool. After visiting the interpretive center we headed back to the kilns.    Isaiah, also ready for an adventure, disappears up the flight of stairs. I follow....  At the top of the stairs and down a little path I find this building hiding behind the trees...    following...

Although we (my son and I) home school, we take advantage of the public school's first school break every year and take a three or four day field trip. This year I decided that we should make the trip to Petersburg, KY to visit the Creation Museum . Since I knew that I would have a hard time staying awake for the eleven hour trip, I decided to break up the drive with a few stops. I usually try to have motels booked and an itinerary planned in advanced but due to a crazy busy month, I had no time for planning. We hit the road with only two must-see stops, the Creation Museum and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum  in Springfield, Illinois. The rest was in God's hands and as always, He provided and we had a great trip. Our road trip began after work on Wednesday evening with the hope to travel until we reached Davenport, IA. I figured that would get us close enough to Springfield so that we would reach the Lincoln Museum on Thursday. But after winding...

 Last week I had an abundance of tomatoes and peppers to harvest from my garden. Although I could of let the peppers ripen into their reds and yellows, I decided that I should get them picked just in case October began acting like October. Thankfully it is still unseasonably warm and I'll be able to get more produce from my garden this week. Even the green tomatoes that I decided to leave on the vines are turning red. My tomatoes were late producers this year so I am so thankful for the warm, sunny October days that we have had. The tomatoes were stewed into spaghetti sauce. I had so many peppers that I decided to try dehydrating them. My freezer is already well stocked with diced peppers from earlier in the season. A friend (bless her heart for being so generous) gave me a dehydrator this fall and I have been having a lot of fun experimenting with it. I sliced up the peppers and let them "cook" for 24 or more hours. So simple as ...