New Years 2009

Barbara and I went to Chadd's Ford, PA for new years eve/morning. Our first stop was to our favorite museum, Bradywine River Museum. As you can see we saw the doll house display that they put up every year at Christmas time. The decorations on all the trees are all made from natural materials. The train display they have every year is great, I being male just love it. After I went on a tour of two of the galleries with the grandaughter of Andrew Wyeth, she had some very interesting stories about her Grandfather and Uncle, we went to the motel. Our room was very nice, it even had a fireplace. After a short rest it was time to go to Longwood Gardens for our New Years Eve. I think Longwood Gardens put up more lights this year then last. The Buffet Dinner was very good and warm, we stretched the dinner out to 1 hour so we could stay warm for that long. It was cold waiting for the ice skaters, notice Barbara's glasses all fogged up. The ice skating was a bit of a disappointment there where only 3 skaters, last year they had more of a program. We waited in the lower level of the conservatory for the firework time to come. The fire works at 9:15PM where just as good as last year, it is only about 15 minutes long but they are the best 15 minutes of fireworks. The following morning we went back to Longwood Gardens to see the conservatory decorations. The best was the display in the main reflection pool called Cranberry Delight. It is filled with 1,100 pounds of cranberries, approxametly 500,000 cranberries. The cranberries are floating in 4 inches of water, 1 cranberry deep. After walking around the conservatory for awhile and seeing the music room made up as a gentleman's library, the trains in the palm room, the orchid room and other areas we went home. All in all it was a cold but delightful New Years Eve.

Bethlehem, Pa

Barbara and I went to Bethlehem, PA ( http://www.christmascity.org/ ) for a few days. We left on Thursday morning and when we got to Bethlehem we went to the visitor center to pick up tickets Barbara had bought online, but they where not there. The lady at the visitor center took our cell phone number and said she was waiting for someone from the Christkindlmarkt ( http://christmascity.org/ckm ) where our tickets might be to call her back. We went off to have lunch at McCarty's Tea Room and Restaurant. The tea room was a bit of a disappointment, not what Barbara was expecting. I even did not think it was much of a tea room. The only thing that was tea room like was the name and the fact that they severed tea. During lunch the visitor center called to tell us that our tickets where at the Christkindlmarkt. After lunch we went back to the visitor center to pick up our paperwork that we had left there and started down the hill to the Christkindlmarkt. On the way we went into the Moravian Book Shop, they do have a book store inside but it is mostly a tourist trap shop. It did look like we would have had a better lunch there then at the tea room. We then walked up the hill to see what a Christmas Putz was. The Christmas Putz is a way to tell a story. It is a large display of the different scenes from the Christmas story and as each part of the story is told a different scene is lit. Then it was off to the Christkindlmarkt. We picked up our tickets and then went into the Christkindlmarkt. The Christkindlmarkt is a set of two huge tents that are full of vendors selling all kinds of crafts. There is a open air part between the tents and there was an ice sculptor working on a nutcracker, see pictures in slide show. In the second tent there is a stage where performers put on shows, we where there in between performers so we did not see any shows. So the Christkindlmarkt is a place you pay to go into to spend money, only in America. After that we took the free trolley back to where the car was parked and went to the motel. After a short rest we went back to the visitor center to go on our Bethlehem by Night Light Tour a bus ride through and around Bethlehem at night. We got quite allot of history on the Moravians and Bethlehem and saw allot of lights. After getting off the bus we walked back to where we had parked the car behind the Main Street Market. We stopped into an ice cream store and after that into a toy store, bought two more Christmas gifts. Then it was back to the motel.

On Friday morning we woke to what would turn out to be a snowy day. After breakfast we headed back into Bethlehem to go to two museums we had tickets for (remember the ticket issue). Well because of the snow both museums where closed. We had a choice, we could go back to the motel for the day or head to the mall. We decided to go to the mall. Because of the snow travel was slow, it took us 40 minutes to go to a mall that was 10 miles away. We got lunch at the mall and walked around for awhile. We headed back to the motel again because of the snow it took us 60 minutes to go about 15 miles. We stopped at a Turkey Hill convenience store to get something for dinner (hot dogs and buns with Campbell's soup and ice cream).

We awoke Saturday to a nicer day, at least it was not snowing. We went back to the museums and they where open. We went to the Moravian Museum of Bethlehem ( http://www.historicbethlehem.org/ ) and got a good look at how the early Moravians lived and worked. Then we walked to the Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts ( http://www.historicbethlehem.org/ ), This museum has a very nice collection of doll houses and other things from the private collection of Annie S. Kemerer including a collection of Bohemian glass. After that we had lunch at the Bethlehem Brew Works ( http://thebrewworks.com/ ), good oatmeal stout. Then to our last event, Moravian Music Christmas. This was a holiday concert in the Central Moravian Church. The concert was excellent and featured The Mainstreet Brass ( http://themainstreetbrass.com/ ), the Central Moravian Church Choir and the Moller pipe organ. Then back into the car to go home.

Gingerbread house party

Barbara invited the neighborhood women over to decorate gingerbread houses last Friday. None of the ladies had ever done this before so they where a bit nervous. But from the pictures you will see that all of them came out great.

Table all ready for the ladies to arrive and our house as a sample.

Around the table from the left: Betty, Louise, Barbara, Joan and Stephine.

Below: Everyone is working and having fun, I almost got iced by Louise.

Below all the finished houses.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

It has been awhile since I have updated this so I will do my best to bring it up to date.

Our Thanksgiving was just Barbara, our son Ray, Barbara’s cousin Louise and I so we decided instead of making a big dinner for just four people we made dinner reservations at The Captain’s Inn in Forked River. The dinner was a buffet with plenty of food and choices. Sorry but I forgot to bring the camera so no pictures.

After Thanksgiving Barbara and I put the fall decorations away and started putting Christmas up. After I emptied the attic (not really but at least 80% of the stuff in the attic is Christmas). We wanted to do more decorating in the kitchen seeing as we spend most of our time in here. I bought some lights that where on sale and put them up behind the sheer valances. We also put lit garland above the cabinets wrapped with silver ribbon. We bought snowflakes made out of wood at a local craft store. We tried to put the snowflakes on the cabinet doors with sticky putty but they kept falling down so we used metallic ribbon to put them up.

Out front I put the animated deer on the lawn along with our angel. On the porch we have Mr. and Mrs. Clause along with some lit packages. The packages are cardboard boxes with part of the top and front cut out. Then I put a string of lights inside the box and wrapped them with translucent wrapping paper.

The living room got it's usual update to Christmas. All the knickknacks are put away and the shelves are all decorated with Christmas. The 4 foot tree was put up and decorated. To see all the pictures of the living room see the album at http://picasaweb.google.com/raygo1975/Christmas2008#.

Today Barbara and I decorated our gingerbread house.Tomorrow Barbara is having a Gingerbread decorating party for the ladies on our street. I will stick around and take some pictures.

On Wednesday evening Barbara and I went to a pine cone wreath class sponsored by The Ocean County Parks Department. We did it last year and enjoyed it so we paid our $18.00 and went again this year. They supply all the material, the hot glue guns and the hot glue (we used allot of glue sticks).

You start with a ring cut out of plywood.

First you glue pine cones to the outside edge and then the inside edge. As you can see when that is done you will have a space left behind which you fill in with pine cones and other natural elements.

Here is my wreath almost done.

When you have finished filling in all the spaces with pine cones you can add a bit of color with some colored beads and bit of ribbon and an artificial flower.
And here are the finished wreaths.

Barbara's wreath My wreath

Painting Class

Well last Monday was the last of my acrylic painting classes. That's right I have been painting art, not very well but good enough. You be the judge. The first picture I did was a copy of one of my pictures from last spring at Longwood Gardens. Here is what I was painting.





And here is what I painted.



Included below are some of the pictures some of the other artists are working on.




Vince did the face on a piece of cardboard in about an hour (during the class).



And here is my second picture (it is not done yet)