The people & things we'll miss about Illinois...

Phew! What a whirlwind of events the past 3 months! As you all know we made the transition from Illinois to Oregon in July. So we're a little behind on the blog, but this is our first step in getting you all caught up on our lives. There are many things that we will miss about Illinois......

This sign in Sycamore, IL says it all (Isn't that funny that there's an Oregon in Illinois?!)

We'll miss our dinners with the Aichers & Gilsons...
...and our many visits with the Gilsons...

*sadly, we missed the birth of lil' Eliana Elizabeth born on September 8th*
...and with the Aichers.
We'll miss our trips to the zoo & visits with the Flewellings. The girls will definitely miss Morgan & Ayla...
We'll miss our trips & visits with our adventure buddies, the Wogens. The girls will miss Ben dearly...

*sadly, we also missed the birth of miss Katherine (Katie) Shay born on September 17th*

We'll miss our Moms & Kiddos on the Go playgroup friends...
They were SO sweet & got us a cake...thank you Lindsay!
...and our Mama & Me playgroup friends.
We'll miss playdate visits & pregym classes with Regina & Vincent (We both started a pregym class at the YMCA when Kaila & Vincent had just turned a year old! A big thank you to Regina for introducing us to the playgroups)...
We'll miss playdate visits with Gretel, Javier, & Tea...
We'll miss playdate visits with Yuni & Austin...
We'll miss our neighbors, the Faivre's, and playing with Olivia & Natalie...
We'll miss the Newman Catholic Student Center, all our church friends, and Cisco's Men's Bible Study/Softball team. They so kindly got this cake for Cisco at their end of the season BBQ.
We'll miss the park right down the road from our house that the girls call "Castle Park"...
We'll miss seeing & catching fireflies (sadly, Oregon doesn't have them)...
We'll miss the possibility of seeing more Cubs games & watching our good friends' brother, Darwin Barney, play...
We'll miss the great city of Chicago & all that it has to offer...
...especially the many Lake Michigan beaches.
Lastly, we'll miss the very reason we were introduced to the Chicagoland area = Cisco's job at Northern Illinois University.

Empty desk :(
Cisco with some of his students for a farewell dinner...
A card from his students...
Class of 2011 KNPE students...
Cisco's department so kindly threw a farewell dinner for him & another one of their colleagues who was also leaving. I'm sure he will miss them all.

Thank you to everyone who has made our 3 years in Illinois very memorable. We learned a lot and grew a lot as individuals and as a family, while there. We will forever cherish the people, the experiences, and the place we called home for the past 3 years.