I am Back!!

The kids and I made it safely back from Michigan. I have lots of things to post on but will just do a short one tonight on the highlights and share about the Abraham Lincoln Museum we visited on the way home. Mapquest had me take a different way this time and the route took me right past Lincoln's Museum in Springfield, Illinois. My goal is to eventually visit all the presidential museums and homes so I visit one every chance I get.

I have been to the museums/historic sites and/or homes of Harry Truman, Herbert Hoover and Ulysses S. Grant. I've only been to these 4 but the Lincoln one is definitely the best one I've been to yet. The kids and I had an hour to make it thru. We didn't get to watch any of the movies but otherwise we got to see everything else. One of the most striking things to me was all the political cartoons slamming Lincoln as an idiot and an awful president. When you consider how Lincoln was hated by many during his time in office and is now often considered the greatest of all presidents you see how doing the right thing pays off. I think history is going to view George W. Bush in a much more favorable light than many view him now. And it was a big encouragement to me to see those cartoons today.


We spent most of the week at my parents' house in a small town in Michigan. I got caught up on sleep, ate fresh blueberries, peaches and sweet corn. My dad grows the best sweet corn ever!! We went to the sand dunes at Lake Michigan, had a water balloon fight, made ice cream popsicles with a Baskin Robbins kit and played many games of dominoes and phase 10.

Some of us went with friends to Greenfield Village over the weekend but I will post on that later.

POLITICAL HIGHLIGHTS:

I am reading this awesome book "102 Minutes" that a friend lent to me. I haven't been able to put it down and I'm almost done. I will do a full review on it later but it is a breathtaking account of things that happened to 365 people that were in the twin towers on 9/11. Some of the people they talk about survived and some didn't. I have been brought to tears and have learned a lot. Amazingly it is pretty objective even though it is written by 2 men who have written for the NY Times.

Prison Break was released on DVD today. If you haven't gotten addicted to this show yet, check it out. Season 2 starts early this year on August 21st (my birthday). How cool is that??