Holiday Greetings to All!

2010 has been a fast year for us! January started off with me and Lex going back to school… We have embarked on an academic journey with the ending destination being a Master of Arts in Teaching and Leadership. It has been a large commitment meeting every Monday night from 4 to 9pm and a few Wednesday nights each month; however, in the end this degree program will give us both an endorsement on our teaching certificates and pave the way to a Master’s in Administration and Supervision. Our classes consist of 13 other teachers from the central Illinois area and we will stay together until degree completion in December 2011. We are definitely developing many new career skills and it has been a lot of fun to be able to go to class together!

Lex continues to exercise her creative talents teaching first grade at East Peoria's Woodrow Wilson, where she has now taught for 3 years. She is regularly coming home with a new funny story to share from her little one's. She is always finding new and creative ways to keep her students engaged as you can see here during a demonstration! I am in my 5th year at Limestone teaching 10th -12th grade science, including a dual credit Earth Science course through ICC.  In April I had the privilege to coach our new IHSA Bass Fishing Team to the state finals at Lake Carlyle in Southern Illinois.  It was a great experience, especially making it that far in our first year!

To break up the doldrums of the winter months, in February, we visited a new favorite get away at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Lex found many new favorite “small town” store fronts and the lake was very pretty covered in snow and ice fishers. (I wanted to join them but didn’t have any ice fishing gear with me). One of the highlights of the weekend was the ice carving contest.  Many ice sculptors had their work on display and their talents definitely did show!  If you ever visit this area be sure to try Scuttlebutt’s Restaurant – it is a great breakfast place right on the lake.

Nothing exciting happened until the first week of June. We took a break before our summer classes began and spent some time in Gulf Shore’s Alabama, our other “getaway”. The Gulf water was extremely warm and Lex was able to conquer the art of body surfing! During our time there we talked to many locals who were very concerned about the oil spill threat… unfortunately, our last night there the oil hit shore. It was a sad site to see the beaches' sugar white sand change before our eyes. As we walked the beach we found many oil covered sea creatures and corals washing upon the shoreline. The teacher/geologist in me could not resist the temptation to collect a few samples to bring back for my classroom! The rest of June was spent going to class and working a few side jobs.

In July we embarked on a five week adventure out west with my parents, visiting: Devil’s Tower, The Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Cody Wyoming, Yellowstone, Glacier, and the Banff area in Canada. It was a trip that we will never forget. I won’t go into a lot of detail as you can read our daily blogs from the trip in the archive (starting with July 11th) if you are interested! We saw an incredible amount of “wildlife” and a lot of amazing geology… It was an eye-opener to witness first hand just how big the powers of God’s hands really are!!!

 The week we got back from our trip it was time to start getting ready for a new school year to begin. We took a few fall camping trips and have had several successful weekends in the fields and trees (hunting). That brings us to the end of this year and to a lot of anticipation for the year to come. We pray that Gods will is working in all of our and your lives, that we always keep in mind the purpose that He has given us, and that his love has been apparent to you in one way or another in the past year.  We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to come!!!

With Love,

       Ben and Lexy