Spring Fun

Things have been good around here--Greg and I have just been working and finding time to do some fun things on the side. I think I'm getting the hang of my job at the Illinois State Military Museum. Here is a better picture of Santa Anna's leg than the last one I posted. I took this one the other day. People love that thing! I found out another interesting fact about this leg: it was used as the baseball bat in the first known organized game of baseball held outside of the United States. The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY told us that they have documentation indicating that after the 4th Illinois captured the leg, they played a game of baseball in Mexico, and supposedly that was the first official game outside of the U.S. So this is not just a leg, it is a baseball artifact!

The Illinois State Military Museum definitely runs at a different pace than the Lincoln Home! The other day one of the men there asked me how many visitors we had the other day. I said, "15," and he said, "Wow! You were busy!" I guess it all depends on your perspective. Compared to 2,000+ people per day at the Lincoln Home in the summer, 15 people seems great! The fewest people I've had come in during the 3.5 hours we're open in the afternoon was six. Hopefully it will pick up a bit during the summer.


I am excited that it is June! June means summer, birthdays, BBQs, and Springfield Sliders' baseball. They had their home opener last Friday, so Greg and I went and had a good time. The Sliders looked pretty good at first, but then they ended up losing by a lot. At least they try hard. Their manager is Danny Cox, a former Cardinals pitcher, so it's fun to see him there.



Even though they lost, they had a great fireworks show after the game! It felt like the 4th of July.










I have kind of a funny work schedule--I basically work every other day, so I have Tuesdays off. Greg's boss was nice enough to give him Tuesdays off too, so we were able to go golfing today. We tried to go before it got too hot, but it was pretty warm. But it was still a beautiful day! We went to the Edgewood Golf Club in Auburn, Illinois. It was a really nice course.

This was only my second time golfing. I was hoping to discover that I had a hidden talent which we could use to make millions, but I'm afraid we wouldn't make much for my golfing skills. This picture looks good, right? It looks like I'll send that ball sailing over the lake. Unfortunately after this picture was taken I totally missed the ball. When I finally hit it, I hit it into the lake. Oh well, I'll keep practicing. You may have heard of tennis elbow--well I have a really bad case of golf wrist. I didn't know golf could be so painful!

Memorable Memorial Day

Yesterday was a GREAT Memorial Day!! Greg and I had been looking forward to going to the St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Francisco Giants game ever since we got some really awesome tickets a few months ago. Our tickets were for the Commissioner's Box, and they included a pre-game visit to the Cardinals dugout. So here we are sitting where the players sit every game!

We were able to stand down on the field during batting practice, which was really cool. We were so close to the players! Unfortunately we couldn't get too close to them--close enough to talk with them :-) But we could see them really well. Here is Colby Rasmus and his mullet. He is one of the Cardinals very good young players. I tried to get his attention so he would come sign a baseball for us, but he was too focused.


We even got to see Red Schoendienst, a Cardinals Hall of Fame player. We were wondering why he was all decked out in his Cardinals gear, but it turns out that he is a special assistant coach for the team. I'd say he looks pretty good for an 88-year-old!

And, hello Albert Pujols! You may have guessed that he is my favorite baseball player. We were SO CLOSE to him . . . yet so far away. We couldn't go down into the dugout while the players were in there. I was hoping that I could "accidentally" fall down the stairs into the dugout, but my plan did not work. But it was still cool to be that close to such a great baseball player. Speaking of Pujols, Greg and I got to see him hit a homerun for the first time since we've been going to Cardinals games!

The best part about the game was our seats. Here is the view from the Commissioner's Box. Over to the left side you can see the Cardinals dugout--we were that close! I was able to sneak over to the side of the dugout right before the game and got an autograph from Cardinals player Tyler Greene. It was really hot yesterday, but it was perfect because included with our tickets was all we could eat and drink--and they even served us food and drinks in our seats! It was heavenly. We calculated that we put down about $50 just in soda and water, not to mention the food we ordered. If we drank alcohol we really would have gotten our money's worth! :-) Unfortunately the Cardinals lost the game (it didn't help that one of the Giants players hit a grand slam), but seeing the Pujols homerun still made it exciting. It was a great day!

Humvee Adventures

Well, I can tell that there will be no shortage of adventures at my new job at the Illinois State Military Museum. Today I got to drive, of all things, a military police Humvee! It was awesome. The museum has a whole collection of jeeps and other military vehicles that they keep out back. They will occasionally bring them to the front of the museum when school groups come so the kids can see the vehicles. They also have a helicopter out back, but unfortunately we don't get to fly that around :-) They also have some tanks out there, but those don't have engines, so we don't get to drive those either. It was quite an adventure in the Humvee! Well, nothing really exciting happened--I just drove it in a circle, but it was still exciting for me. I think I forgot to mention that the museum is located on an actual military base--Camp Lincoln--so there are soldiers everywhere. At least I feel very safe!

Baseball and Santa Anna's Leg

It has been a busy week! I returned from Utah last Tuesday, and then Greg and I went up to a Peoria Chiefs baseball game on Wednesday. The Chiefs are one of the Minor League teams for the Chicago Cubs. It was the perfect evening for baseball.


Here is the view from our seats. As you can see, the safety net that keeps people safe from foul balls only covered half of our view--which means we were really only half-safe. Sure enough, one of the Quad City Riverbandits players (they are the St. Louis Cardinals affiliate team) hit a foul ball that nearly took Greg's head off. It was okay though because we ended up getting the ball, and then the player who hit it signed it for us after the game. If he makes it big someday, the ball could be valuable.

On Thursday and Friday of last week, I wrapped up my volunteer work for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the Lincoln Home so that I would be ready to start my new job at the Illinois State Military Museum today! Here is a picture of the museum--it looks like a castle. I can't seem to get away from castles (the main building at Eastern Illinois University was a castle). I got slammed with a really bad cold this weekend, so I was worried about starting work today, but I made it through all right. I think the job will be really fun!

The Illinois State Military Museum has a surprisingly cool collection of really neat artifacts. They have an amazing collection of actual Civil War flags, most of which were brought back home by Illinois troops who captured the flags. Their most famous artifact, however, is Santa Anna's wooden leg, captured by the 4th Illinois Infantry in the war with Mexico. They snuck up on Santa Anna's camp, and Santa Anna had to leave in a real hurry, so he didn't have time to grab his leg. (His real leg had been blown off by the French in 1838.) Bill, the Curator at the museum, told me today that Mexico keeps asking for the leg to be returned, but that's not going to happen--especially considering what Santa Anna did at the Alamo. So I should get to see and so some pretty interesting things at work.

Also, you may have heard about the horrible tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri last night. The pictures of the damage are just crazy! I was worried because my friends Jim and Michelle (Jim was my first boss in Natchez) now live in Joplin, but I just heard back from Michelle on Facebook today. Thankfully she and Jim are okay, and their house is still standing, so that is good news. Have I mentioned that I really, really hate tornadoes?

Utah: Week 3!

I can't believe how time flies! A lot happened during my third and final week in Utah, and now I am back in Illinois. It seems like I just left for Utah! We did sure have a fun week though. Last Tuesday, May 10, Mom and I had a fun lunch with our friend Yevon at Brick Oven. On Thursday Mom and I had a fun little trip up to Gardner Village where we had lunch and checked out the furniture. And on Friday we had a fun girls (and little guys) lunch at the Blue Lemon. Here are Leo and Ben enjoying the festivities.


Sid and Eliza especially enjoyed their orange soda and green quesadillas! Unfortunately on Friday night I found out that I didn't get the Exhibit Curator job at BYU I had so been hoping for. I was pretty crushed. I had told myself not to get my hopes up, but with the job interview process taking over one month, and with it coming down to just me and one other candidate, it was hard not to start thinking along the lines of if I got the job. It's been hard for me to live so far away from everyone, so I was counting on this as Greg's and my chance to come back to Utah . . . but I guess the timing wasn't quite right. I am still really, really disappointed and sad about it, but there have been some new developments on the job front, which I will explain shortly.

On Saturday we did some house cleaning to get ready for a realtor to come through, and then Mom, Dad, Rich and I had some yummy Thai food at our favorite Thai Village that evening. We had a nice day together on Sunday, and then on Monday Mom and I spent part of the day watching Eliza and Leo while Sarah was teaching. That afternoon we had a little outing to our favorite restaurant, Marley's (at the Timpanogos Harley Davidson shop) and took our picture before having some yummy raspberry frozen custard there. My favorite part about being home was just being able to spend time with my family and go on fun outings together.

Yesterday Mom and Dad took me to the airport, and they got to see Elder Jay E. Jensen, a member of the LDS Quorum of the Seventy and a childhood friend of Dad's, who was with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. I was already in the security line, so I was just watching their exchange, but the next thing I know, Elder Holland is squeezing Dad's face! :-) I asked Mom about it on the phone later, and she said that Elder Jensen said to Elder Holland, "You know Hal Taylor? This is his son, Steve." Elder Holland then said, "Yes," squoze Dad's face and said, "You do look like your dad." So that was kind of a funny encounter Mom and Dad had at the airport. I was really sad to leave my family and Utah, but it's been nice to be back with Greg and the animal children. Lily slept on my head all night last night :-)


Something interesting happened literally right after I landed in Springfield last night. Greg had been talking to his friend who works at the Illinois State Military Museum, and his friend said that they might be needing a new Assistant Curator there. Then while I was in Chicago on my layover, the Curator from the museum called Greg and asked him to have me call him when I got home. So I gave him a call after returning to Springfield and he basically offered me the job on the spot! It's funny to think of all I went through for the BYU job, which didn't work out, and then I didn't even do anything and ended up with this other job. I'm going to go meet with the Curator today and I might start working there next week! It's a pretty cool museum--they even have Santa Anna's wooden leg in their collection, which is kind of interesting. They do a lot of Civil War stuff there, so I think it could be a good fit for me--and it would be some good experience. I'll post details when I find out more.