For Stephanie!

So we've seen a few interesting things as we've traveled the past 3 weeks. We've been to Decatur, Illinois (about mid state)--Franklin, Ohio (just outside of Cincinnati)--and now we are currently in Hammond, Indiana (just east of Chicago so up north) So we thought we'd post a few pictures of what we've seen and how we got to see it. The first picture below is of Ground up Kangaroo....sounds horrible and I happen to think they are really cute animals. Well we went to a world famous market called Jungle Jims (no kid rides at this one) but it was huge. Its foods from all over the world. So we walked around for maybe a couple hours and took it all in. The only thing we ended up buying was Salt Water taffy (you guessed it, from Utah) and some english candy for my friend Hailey. But it was neat to see the different things people will eat. This picture was taken at a flea market we went to in search of belt buckles for Rachel. This baby birds with their mama decided it was the perfect place to camp out. Super cute and loud little guys.
Our favorite picture yet. This one is of what locals call "Touch Down Jesus". He is right off the main freeway and we passed him daily. Its for some born again Christian church, and I think they were trying to depict him being born again, but to us and many others it looks like his saying "It's good!"
This is where we are currently. Lost Marsh Golf Course. Pretty layout for a place that not long ago was a landfill. It sits in the middle of BP oils refineries. No joke. If the camera was turned around you'd see the whole BP factory. But none-the-less its a great course.
We had some great things happen yesterday. We started our day at 7 at the golf course and played for awhile then Rachel who had previously qualified to play in a Par 3 challenge, teed it up to play a 9 hole Par 3 for a little bit of money. She played steady golf and shot even which put her at tied for 2nd, so she should take home 700 or so from that, so well worth the time. Then we decided it was lunch time and went to the Casino that was sponsoring the tournament. They had a buffet and we were hungry. Before going in Rachel was chatting with one of the chefs for the buffet that was standing outside, after chatting for a minute about golf he offered to buy us our lunch, so a free buffet for 3 people. We made sure we tipped our waitress good. Rachel then spoke to her Dad to inform him of her success and all of the sudden she's talking to Derrek Parr (Olympic Gold and Silver medalist in speed skating) and he's wishing her good luck for her tournament and gave her some tips about believing in herself. Her dad was at a luncheon with him and asked him to speak to her. It was really cool. So yesterday was great, and now we're going to carry that through to a great weekend. We hope everyone is doing great and we'll be back in Utah to visit Monday night through Sunday.