Allie the Alligator

Last summer, Eleanor & I spent a week at our Grandma & Papa Wilson’s house with our Aunt Meg and our Great Papa. Our Great Papa kept telling us stories about his pet alligator, Allie, back in Texas. Nobody believed that he actually had a pet alligator except me. I mean, what if he did, and I’d been accusing him of lying this whole time?

But, he doesn’t anymore. Yesterday, Eleanor & I opened a package to find Allie’s head, and a note from Great Papa: “Allie escaped from his pen. He tried to cross the street, but didn’t make it. This is the biggest part left of him. I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet him. He was really a nice pet. Enjoy what’s left of him.”

Great Papa also gave us another note: "When you think of Allie the gator also remember Mr. Peanut.
Mr. Peanut sitting on the Rail Road track.
His heart was all aflutter.
The Ho9 coming around the bend,
Toot! Toot! Peanut Butter!"

Poor Allie's head

Happy Birthday Dad!

Tuesday was Dad’s birthday! He had to work (which is totally unfair), so we didn’t do much during the day birthday-wise. For dinner, we had sandwiches based off of the Spicy East Coast Italian ones at Jimmy Johns. They were really good.

After dinner, we went to Steak n’ Shake to get birthday milkshakes. Eleanor got M&M, and Dad and I got Nutella. It was really rich and delicious. Elsa got some of Dad’s, and she liked it a lot. I’d say it was a really good birthday!

Happy 4th of July!

Six days ago was the 4th of July, and our new neighborhood, Deer Hollow, had a parade, where all of the kids (and a few adults) went around the neighborhood. The day before the parade, Eleanor & I decorated our bikes with our friends Raegan & Talynn.

The day of the parade (July 3rd), all of my friends went to Talynn & Raegan’s house to wait for the parade to start & do a few last-minute touch-ups to our bikes. Mom & Elsa sat outside to watch the parade (Elsa was very hot).

After the parade, Eleanor & I got lunch from the food truck at the parade & had a picnic in our garage with some of our friends. It was a really fun parade!

On the actual 4th of July, Mom & Dad painted Eleanor’s room! She chose a light blue for the walls and a purple for her nook. I think the colors complement each other really well.

Eleanor & I also got to swim in our neighbor’s pool. It’s an above-ground pool that’s like, 5 feet tall. They just got it 2 weeks ago, and that was my second time swimming in it (it was Eleanor’s first).For dinner we had bratwursts and for dessert, Mom made brownies with icing, strawberries, and blueberries. They were really rich, and really good.

After dinner we played Euchre, which Dad & Eleanor won by one point. Everyone says that I’d be a better player if I didn’t always call on nines, but it’s more exciting that way. A lot of people let off fireworks, so we went out to the front yard to watch them. It was a really fun 4th of July!

Real Church!

Today, we got to go to church… in person! Our church set up a big tent & a stage outside, and everyone who signed up brought lawn chairs to sit on. It wasn’t exactly like church used to be, but I really loved being able to go in person.

We left Elsa at home by herself while we went to church. We were a little nervous about what she would do, since the last few times we’ve tried to leave her alone she destroyed the house. But she was actually good! She didn’t even get on the couch! I think she’s realizing that being good has its rewards. 

Quarantine Father's Day

For breakfast on our quarantine Father’s day we had chocolate pie! Or as Dad called it, “Chocolate quiche”, because there are eggs in it.

If it has eggs and is in a pie plate, it must be quiche.

After our delicious breakfast, we were supposed to actually go to church. They were planning to do an outdoor service, but since it was going to rain, it got canceled, and they filmed it live in the church instead. I was a little disappointed, but I still like watching church with my family.

In the afternoon, we went on a family bike ride around Lake of the Woods, which was Dad’s only father’s day request. We went to the botanical gardens, which was pretty cool. Eleanor & I have already been to Lake of the Woods a few times, but this was my parent’s first time biking there.

When we got back, Mom, Eleanor, & I started to make a Father’s Day dessert: Chocolate Mousse, which is a really light, fluffy, chocolate dessert that’s a little like pie filling. It’s really good.

Pro tip: If you hold the chocolate in your hands for a minute, it melts and then you get to lick your fingers!

Once we broke up the chocolate, Eleanor & I played some Mario Kart with Dad. I really like playing with him, even though he always wins for some reason. I guess it’s more fun to play with other people.

After Mario Kart (which dad won) Eleanor & I went to play with our neighbors for a little bit. Then we had dinner, which was, on Dad’s request, zucchini burgers & an interesting salad. What made it interesting was the dressing, which was not my favorite. Then we ate our chocolate mousse. It was a really fun Father’s Day.

Super tall zucchini burgers and salad with a ginger-carrot dressing

Chocolate Mousse in bad dog mugs

Campout

On Friday night, Eleanor & I had a campout with some of our neighborhood friends. Their dad set up a tent in their backyard and we spent the night in it. I had been wanting to do this ever since some of the neighborhood kids told me how they were thinking of doing a campout memorial day weekend, and it was just as fun as I thought it would be!

The first thing we did once the tent had been set up was play Apples to Apples, which Talynn won, but it was pretty close. Then, we watched the new Artemis Fowl movie on their computer & ate goldfish (it was a really good movie!). Mom & Dad just got Eleanor & me a lot of rubber bands & beads to use to make bracelets, so after we watched Artemis Fowl, we made rubber band bracelets (and watched some Mickey Mouse shorts). I made about 10 bracelets, I just love making them. We went to sleep after that, which took a surprisingly short amount of time, since we were on the ground.

Saturday morning, we made even more bracelets and created a really funny song about Apples to Apples based off of the “Party in a Box!” that they have on the box. We had donuts for breakfast (Eleanor & I had vanilla & sprinkles; Talynn & Raegan had chocolate & sprinkles) on their back deck. Then (after making a few more bracelets) we packed up our stuff, grabbed our bikes from their garage, and headed home! It was a really fun campout, and I’m glad that I got to go!

Abby the Zebra

Our new neighborhood is awesome. There are so many kids to play with, and so much fun stuff to do! Eleanor & I usually go out at 10:00, come back at 12:30 for lunch, go back out at 1:00, and come back home at 5:30. We ride bikes, play spidermonkey, make rainbow loom bracelets, walk dogs, have lemonade stands, jump on trampolines, & have water gun fights. Mom says she didn’t know that kids just go outside and play with each other all day anymore. All of the kids to play with is probably one of my favorite things about this neighborhood.

A few days ago, we all decided to try something new: Facepaint! We certainly weren’t professionals, but we weren’t that bad, either. After I told everyone that my favorite animal is a zebra, one of the girls decided to try and paint my face to look like a zebra. It took several attempts & about half an hour, but here is the finished product (I think it turned out pretty well)!

Moving Day!

We moved! We actually moved a few days ago, but I forgot to write a blog post, so I’m writing one now. The day we moved, we went over to our new house at 7:00 in the morning, and Mom, Eleanor & I ate breakfast there. We had doughnuts (Yum!).

Elsa got a new bed for the new house, and as you can see, she did not want to sleep on it at first.

We spent a few hours at the new house, where I went outside to play with some neighbors, and Eleanor did her school’s virtual fun day over zoom. Then, around 10:30, Mom, Eleanor, Elsa & I all went back to our old house, because the movers were bringing our furniture over and they didn’t want too many people around. They were done around noon, so we went back to our new house, and spent the rest of the day unpacking.

We finished the day with some food from a bbq restaurant in Mahomet, Project 47. It was a really good day, and I really like our new house & neighborhood. I’m glad we moved!

The Upside of Packing

On Sunday, Dad was going through some old boxes, and he found his old Nintendo. He tried to set it up, and it worked (well, it was a little slow at first, but it did work eventually)! Dad showed Eleanor & me some of the games he used to play on it, like Zelda & Starfox. They were pretty cool, and a lot like some of the video games I play now.

By Abby

Social Distancing - Haircuts

Yesterday, Mom cut Eleanor & my hair! I cut a lot off, as you can see, and Eleanor had her ends cut. You can’t really tell she cut it because her hair is wet, but when it’s dry, it’s definitely shorter. 

By Abby

Social Distancing - Homeschool Herbology

Today, we all went to the Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve to look for garlic mustard, which is an invasive species. We didn’t find any, but it was really nice out, and I still had fun getting out of the house for a while. Elsa didn’t get to come because we thought it might be muddy out, though. I think she would’ve enjoyed all of the grass to eat.

Fun walking bridge - someone took a picture of it for an art show at Springer once.

Can you tell we're sisters?

By Abby

Social Distancing - Birthday Shim Sham

So, a few weeks ago, Mom taught me the Shim-Sham, a widely known tap dance with a lot of different variations. For my birthday, Mom & I made a video of us doing the Shim-Sham together (notice the matching outfits). 

by Abby

Social Distancing - Easter Eggs

As our Easter tradition, we all dyed Easter eggs together on Saturday afternoon. I think that our egg-dying skills have really improved, and this year, and a lot of our eggs were pretty impressive. Here are some pictures:

Social Distancing - Hair Styles

On Sunday, my sister Eleanor decided to do her hair with pin curls. She mostly does pin curls for special occasions, like Christmas & picture day at school, but she did them yesterday just for fun. She also kept the pins curls in a little longer than usual, and the result was that her hair was extremely bouncy.

Here’s her hair up in pin curls:

And here’s the finished product (notice how short it is):

by Abby

Social Distancing - Puzzles

So ... we finally finished our thousand-piece puzzle! It took about two weeks to finish, and at times, was very frustrating, but we did it! Again, by “we”, I mean Mom & Eleanor << and Dad, I did most of the blue flower section >> , but I put in 7 of the pieces. Here’s a picture of when we started the puzzle, and the finished product, so you can get an idea of how much work it was:

We also watched Onward last night. It was a really good movie & I liked it a lot, even though it wasn’t what I thought it would be. Tonight we might be watching the new Stars Wars, and I’m looking forward to that.

Social Distancing - Scattergories

On Monday night, we had a game night. We played Scattergories in the dining room. It was really fun. Scattergories is a great game to play as a family because it’s really funny. But I was kind of insulted when the letter was A, and the topic was “things that need washed” because my dad wrote “Abby”.

by Abby

Social Distancing - Dumplings Around the World

by Abby

This week, we have a theme to our dinners: Dumplings Around the World! Every day for dinner we’re having a variation of dumplings from a different country: Perogies from Poland, empanadas from Argentina, dumplings from China, samosas from India, and chicken & dumplings from America. We started off our dumpling week with Polish Perogies (and Polish sausage) last night. Some of them popped in the oven, but they were still really good.

On Tuesday, in honor of our Dumplings Around the World theme, we made empanadas from Argentina. They were made in basically the same way as the perogies, but they had a lot more flavor, which was probably thanks to the olives, meat, & raisins. They were personally my favorite.

On Wednesday, we made South American chicken & dumplings. This was actually a soup, and the “dumplings” were balls of dough that got dropped in. I wouldn’t really call these dumplings since they didn’t have any filling, but they were really good.

On Thursday, we made Indian samosas. Those were really good. The dough was kind of hard to make into the right shape because it was really thin and kept falling apart. But it was really fun to make anyway, and the samosas tasted really good with the sauce.

To conclude our Dumplings Around the World week, we made classic Chinese dumplings. Those were possibly the hardest to make because of the shape they had to be in, but they were by far the best. While we were making them, I ate a lot (12) of the broth cube things (they’re just so good!).