We had a non-Traditional Thanksgiving. We decided to motor to central Pennsylvania to take in some Christmas lights that have been on ABC's Christmas Light Fight, HGTV, and the Today Show. The kids enjoyed it. Mom and Dad thought it looked better on TV. :)
The next day, we went to the Bethlehem Christmas Market at the old Bethlehem Steel Mill. We walked around 4 tents of booths, enjoyed some yummy lunch, and then took in a tour of the old steel mill. RJ was most excited that the mill was used as a setting in Transformers 2--they just put up some Kanji lettering to make it look like it was in Asia. Jip and I enjoyed the history, but we were all glad when the tour was over--it was chilly!!
We drove home on Saturday and immediately got to work on Christmas-fying the house. We ended up buying a new tree thanks to the old one (purchased in 2003) deciding to half-way die. Thankfully I found a lovely one--but not on sale, of course. Most importantly, Jip and I finished our beautiful new porch decorations. Over the summer, I showed Jip a catalog picture of boxes that look like a stack of presents and then nest inside of each other during the off-season. He engineered his way through making the boxes the right sizes and the right weight. I made vinyl stencils to create the painted patterns and did a bunch of free-hand touch-ups when my stencils failed me. We know what we would do differently next time (hopefully there won't be a next time), but all of the headaches were completely worth it!
This weekend, Ryleigh has another meet. Jip and I have a holiday party and the kids get their favorite teenager, Meghan, to hang out with them. As always, pics to come. Until next time, cheers!
