The Holidays in lllinois

Every year since I can remember, my mom and I fly to St. Louis, rent a car, drive 3 hours to southern Illinois (specifically the booming metropolis of Eldorado), goof around with family, eat lots of carbs, eat lots of sugar, eat lots of butter, gain 5 pounds, fly a UFO, drive 3 hours back to St. Louis, and fly home...all in 3 days! We look forward to it every year! Well, for the second year in a row, Mike joined us (I think it was either the UFO or Aunt Donna Mae's desserts) for the madness.

Mike and I with my Grandma Opal...


Four generations (Grandma Opal, mom, me, and baby)...

Mom and I after overindulging ourselves on a combination of Aunt Donna Mae's 15 desserts...

Sometime after that, me - post nap...

Uncle Bill, me, and Baby Spruiell...

Mike and I cheating on Jerry with another border collie (Uncle Bill and Aunt Teresa's baby Chico)...

Does this picture look familiar to ANYONE else? Just substitute Mike for Uncle Bill and Jerry for Chico.

As for the highlight of the weekend, the UFO! So the story goes, when my Uncle Bill was younger, he built this UFO and let it fly around town. Well, some of the townspeople saw it, really thought it was a UFO, and it made the paper the next morning! There was even a quote in the paper by one man who swears he saw tiny aliens inside. Every year since, we have re-created the UFO. We spend the entire weekend analyzing the probability of the thing flying - between wind trajectories, temperature, materials, and other factors we cannot discuss (top secret family business) - it all comes down to the last night! Will it fly or not? Let me tell you, we've had some pretty good years! We've seen this thing fly so far we cannot see it anymore. On the flip side, we've had some really bad years - think burning UFO landing on top of Uncle Bill's roof. Either way, come hell or high water, we try to fly.

The UFO team members include Uncle Bill - founder and president, my cousin Clint, myself, and the newest member Mike! Mike was voted in this year after my family confirmed he is not a Russian spy selling our secrets - in fact his engineering background has proven to be a great asset! Other helpers include Clint's daughter Faith. The next generation of UFOers will include Faith, her now 9 month old brother Jaxson, and Baby Spruiell so we have been putting them through some pretty rigorous training.

Here are some pictures - there are no close-ups due to the preserving the family secrets in UFO building... :)