30 Days of Wonder

Today is Ben's 30th birthday, and in celebration of that fact I gave him a present a day for the last 30 days. It was mostly small things (a box of his favorite candy, a six-pack of his favorite beer) and free things (arranging a skype date with old friends, a gift card for him to pick the movie we watch without me arguing), with a few nicer things thrown into the mix (like the surprise birthday party I threw him earlier this month). Today was the finale, and the present was a portrait from our friend who is a really great painter. It was complicated to arrange since she lives in Israel now, so getting it here was a bit of an ordeal, but it all worked out and he loved it.

Also this past month, we volunteered at the Black Girls Code Robot Expo, which was a great way to get our hang-out-with-middle-school-nerds fix since this will be our first year not volunteering with FIRST Lego League since 2010. Another first - we didn't go to both Frederick and Chicago for the holidays, since now we live far away and Ben is no longer a student with two weeks off. Instead we just went to Chicago, and my family met us there, for a five day combined-family holiday visit. We had a great time, especially hanging out with our four-year-old niece.

Play-doh party

Family selfie

The visit and the "30 days of wonder" (yes I really called it that because I am a huge dork) were a great way to end 2015. Here's looking forward to whatever 2016 has to offer!

Tis the Season

Yesterday we went to Longwood Gardens Christmas - Longwood is a giant complex of gardens and greenhouses right outside of Philly, and every December they go nuts with Christmas lights and decorations. We got there right as the sun was setting, which made for some nice views:

I liked the reflections the "floating trees" made on the water.

After it got dark, parts of it felt like walking around in some sort of Dr. Seuss forest.

The centerpiece of the show is the giant conservatory, which is filled with many different Christmas trees. The coolest part was the central hallway:

That chandelier is made of flowers, and if you look closely you can see the pattern on the ground is made out of apples. APPLES. They also had lots of smaller flower chandeliers throughout:

Love those orchids.

It was cold, but quite tolerable with long johns and hot chocolate. We picked the perfect day to go, though, because this morning we woke up to this outside our window:

As of now there's about two inches of snow accumulated on our deck railing, and it's still coming down - we'll be staying indoors for the remainder of the weekend!

Deck the Halls

Well guys, I finally got the condo decorated for the holidays. Now as soon as you walk in the front door, you will see our very own Christmas Tree:

I know. I'm practically Martha Stewart over here.