celebrating 11 years (and a few days)

This weekend we received two anniversary gifts: a hotel stay minus the kids and a zucchini.

Our 11 year anniversary happened in July. As per usual lately, we celebrated late, as in yesterday. Jill's mom and dad came for a visit and paid for a hotel room and watched the girls on Friday night and Sat morning. Jill came up with this plan: ride bikes after dinner on Fri to Tuscola (home of the outlet mall!) and ride home on Sat.

We were quite excited for this adventure. We put on much reflection and used our super lights on the bikes upon our 8pm departure.

Why is riding at night fun? Almost no traffic, nice temperatures, almost no wind. We saw zillions of stars. We rode the 25ish miles in about 2 hours. Look how relaxed and happy Jill is upon reaching the outlet mall.
After some sleep and a big breakfast (and purchasing gifts for the girls at the mall's toy store), we were back on the road again. We could see the corn and beans under the bright blue sky, but it was rather warm and the wind was against us. There was almost no traffic -- this is central IL after all.
While we were resting in the shade of a tree, a local named Bill came out to chat with us. And he gave us the giant zucchini shown above.
Lunch was at the Philo tavern in the center of the universe. Rib eye sandwich for me and a bleu cheese bacon burger for Jill. Yum.
We arrived home around 2:30 to Clara napping and Janny drinking milk.

The girls did great without us. Clara went to sleep without much complaining, and Janny slept through the night. The gang all visited the sweet corn festival which we missed completely this year. We'll get around to eating sweet corn soon enough.