Valentine's weekend

**If reading about other people's love/happiness makes you grumpy--do not continue!!**

I had an amazing weekend.

Orignially, I thought I was going to spend it shooting photos for the Index, writing 3 papers and helping cook a college dinner. However, Zach realized on Wednesday that I was slowly filling up my schedule--and he had plans! So he told me early that he bought us train tickets to go to Galesburg, IL. He hated to spoil the surprise early--but I was making too many plans for my weekend!

So after writing 3 papers in about 36 hours, cancelling my photos and getting out of my other responsibilities--I was a free bird!

We left on Saturday morning after a lovely breakfast with our friends Tyler and Elyssa.

The train was awesome! I've ridden the train from St. Louis to Chicago--but this train goes from California to Chicago and was SOOO comfortable. It was a double-decker train, and Zach and I spent almost all our time in this "glass" cart that they have. The windows are huge and the seats look outward, so you just sit there and watch everything go by. It was fantastic!

Zach chose the perfect town. The train dumps off right in Galesburg's downtown area. Useful because Zach and I had only our backpacks and our own two feet to get around. The hotel was also in walking distance.

We stopped by our hotel room to drop off our backpacks. Here is Zach, ready to hit the town!

Zach told me that he had another surprise for me in Galesburg. As we were walking through downtown, he suddenly had me close my eyes. He walked me across the street, then had me look up....such beautiful words did my eyes behold!!

CHOCOLATEFEST!!!!!!!

Oh my goodness....it was fabulous. You bought a ticket, then you could eat as much chocolate as you wanted. I had chocolate mousse pie, cookies, cupcakes, brownies, candies.... Our favorite was the classic chocolate covered strawberries. So good!!

(There was also chocolate covered bacon (see in center of plate). Which Zach liked and I thought was horrific)

We also saw the Historical Societies display (they put on the Chocolatefest)

Ronald Reagan lived in Galesburg for awhile, and here is his gradeschool report card. Haha. Looks like he was a good student! (2nd line)

And even more exciting--Carl Sandburg lived in Galesburg. Here is his Poem "Fog" in his original handwriting!! Ah! I love this poem--little did I know I would get to see an original, handwritten copy.

We walked all around town, went to bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, shops....

Here is our little friend from the pet store. He was so teeny!

(I do not know why this text is being underlined!)

Galesburg has tons of really awesome architecture and old buildings.

We went out for dinner and had a magician stop by our table. Zach and I don't believe in magic--but this guy was incredible. We do NOT understand how he could do these things. For one trick he had me sign one of the cards in the deck, then he tigly wound a large rubberband around all four corners of the entire deck (which we watched him put my card in). Then he threw the whole deck up against the very high ceiling and my card was stuck to the ceiling! How it got from the middle of a rubberbanded deck to be stuck against the ceiling I will never know. But my card is still there :)

I must also tell of our extremely exciting hotel story.... So, the hotel we stayed in was budget friendly (cheapest in the town) but still fine. We weren't complaining. We went to bed around 12 or 1 and Zach quickly fell fast asleep. I woke up around 3 am and was just lying there awake. I could here trains going by and the muffled tv from next door. Then suddenly, I hear someone at our door and next thing I know I hear it open hard and slam against the metal bar that you can slide across the doorway. Someone had opened our door and was trying to get in!!!! I was shouting, terrified--Zach woke up from a dead sleep and went straight into protective mode. He threw his arm in front of me and started shouting at whatever I was shouting at. Then he thought I might have just been dreaming so he was saying "It's okay Amy! It's alright! We're safe!" To which I shouted "We are NOT alright. SOMEONE IS IN OUR ROOM!!!"

Zach got up and checked the door. At first he thought I might have just heard something else, but sure enough--you could see where the bar had been knocked open from someone trying to come in. We were so freaked out, but had nowhere else to go. So we bolted and barred the door, and put a chair under the handle. Haha. Zach lay awake for 2 hours so that I could fall back asleep. Everything we heard made our hearts skip a beat. In the morning we told the little Indian man who owned the hotel. He asked for a description but I told him it was too dark for me to see. He then opened his cash register, gave us $10 and told us next time we came it wouldn't happen.

Zach and I left. Looking at our green 10 dollar bill in the parking lot we could only laugh. Nothing could make us go back there again!!

So moral of the story: Even when you have the electronic key cards that only YOU are supposed to be able to open your door with--bolt and bar your hotel door. You never know who on the hotel staff might be trying to sneak in and grab your purse. Or what drunk might try to break in!

It was terrifying, and I'm not sure the last time I had that much adrenaline rushing through me--but it makes for a great memory and a great story.

Our second day in Galesburg we went to a coffee shop and studied for awhile, then we walked to Knox college and tried to pretend we were college students there. We spent an hour or two in their awesome library.

The Knox College Library

Zach was super pumped to be at this building. Abraham Lincoln debated slavery here against Stephen Douglas.

We had lunch at a mom and pop place with amazing hamburgers. Later we went to a Creperie for dessert crepes. So amazing. Zach's had ice cream, banan, caramel and fudge. Mine was full of strawberries and had sour cream on top.

This is pretty much what we did. Two days of being together, laughing a lot and exploring Galesburg.

Zach bought me a bag of Twizzler's for the ride home and we sat in the train station chatting and reading the newspaper.

This isn't the train we rode on...but I'm sure the coal/whatever is having a lovely time

This is the view out the train window on the ride home. The ride home went too quickly. The train was gently rocking and the sunset was flying by. We were tempted to just stay on and ride to California.

And this is me. Very happy. Very in love. God has blessed me with such a fabulous man!

Blizzard Aftermath

I never did update on the aftermath of the blizzard. The official total was 14 inches, with drifts that were up to 4-5 feet. You can compare this photo of our house with the one from the previous blog post.

It would have taken forever to shovel our long driveway. Our neighbor Rose and we split the $25 to have a random guy on a tractor come plow our driveway. Another reason why I love Kirskville :)

Here was the aftermath!

I mentioned a possible attempt at bread baking in the last post...which I did attempt. It doesn't look too bad, but it was very dense and tasted terrible!! I think largely due to the fact that I used old, whole wheat flour. Next time I will use white flour!

And to end this post--here is a random picture of people ice fishing. When the ice is thick enough you find people every morning out here on Spur Pond. So awesome. They are very brave. The highs last week were almost all in the single digits, with windchill it was usually below zero!

Blizzard!

Sunday night everyone started talking about this amazing blizzard that was going to hit Missouri. Zach and I were both a little skeptical...

But this morning it started snowing around 7:00--and it hasn't stopped. Truman State University has not cancelled classes for 37 years. After I had trudged through the snow to my 9:00 class, I was informed that the school was cancelling everything after 10:30. Woo hoo! You would have to attend here to understand, but this cancellation is seriously monumental! A day in history, really :)

Blizzards must mess with my chemical balances...because I have gone kind of insane. I can't stop baking! Last night I made these bran muffins that Zach really wanted me to make. If you like Molassess, then they were probably good. If you don't like Molassess (like normal people) then they were NASTY! I'm sure they were very healthy, but I felt like I was eating ground up sticks.

This morning I made cornbread to go along with chili (made by my fabulous chef husband). It was all delicious.

Then I made peanut butter cookies.

The majority turned out well, but as with every batch of cookies I bake--some don't. Depending on how much attention I have focused in other areas, I tend to forget about the poor little children I have baking in the oven. The picture below shows some of this variation.

Amazing--->Average---> Abominable

I took lots of pictures of food today. Zach does not understand my need to do this. I never realize how ridiculous it looks until I catch my reflection :)

Well, the snow is still dumping from the sky. They say 17-21 inches--I am still skeptical of that! Time will tell, this is what it looks like from my front porch right now. (that is my neighbor's house to the right) And yes, I was too lazy to take my humming bird feeder down. It is very brave!

Amazingly, Truman has already cancelled classes for tomorrow. I am hoping to try baking my first loaf of bread. We'll see how that goes!