Great Gramma Boyce

I love my Gramma Boyce. She lives in the iddy bitty village in Illinois called Cissna Park. I love Cissna Park. This little village has a park and pavilion in the center of it with houses and businesses surrounding it and then homes extending out from the center out into the farming community... I didn't get a good picture of the park/pavilion. But I got a great picture of this squirrel in it!!!

My Gramma turns 81 on Sunday and so I took the kids from Michigan down to Illinois. On the way I got lost and had us headed to Wisconsin... Oops... But it all turned out fine. Here is a little about the town.

Yep - that's right - Population 850...

This is an arial shot of the farm my mother grew up on. This is also where I saw my first tornado! Very exciting! After watching it for a bit my gramma says, "Well, I guess we ought to get in the basement now..."

This is the town's water tower. There are a lot of water towers in the mid-west!

This is pretty much every road. With corn fields on both sides of the road...

I love corn! Someone in our last ward said there is nothing to do in the mid-west but watch the corn grow. I actually really enjoy watching the corn grow!!!

My family has a lot of history in the town. In fact there is a street named after us! (Enz is my maiden name)

This bank has about $200 of my dollars....

This is Hope. The town of Hope. That is what it is called. And this is all that is there... About 5 houses and a church.

I was driving to Cissna one night and I killed a bird here. It flew into my headlight and died. It didn't have any more hope in Hope. I cried that night.

This is the town's grocery store...

A storm started rolling in as we were leaving. I just thought it looked cool.

Now - I have always said that this town is SO small. There isn't even a stop light. As I was leaving town - guess what I ran into?????!!!!!

About 15 stop lights. So this is the temporary 15 stop lights in the town until they get the bridge done!