Christmas Cross Stitch

We've been having a very low key winter break - we're currently in Chicago with Ben's family, and tomorrow we'll head to Maryland for Christmas #2 with my family. No exciting updates to report, but I did make a Ben a sampler for his present, out of a toothpaste for dinner comic that he likes:

That's Ben, wearing his Knights of the Lambda Calculus tshirt.

Happy holidays, everyone!

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!

Back from break

Ben and I went to our respective homes for Thanksgiving. I uncovered the following awesome picture of my 8-year-old self, fresh from Girl Scout camp 1995:

Check out that sweet swap hat.

Ben had fun with his niece:

Now we are back in Philly, and tonight we climbed into the bed to watch a movie together. I looked over at Ben and noticed that his nightstand was even more funny than usual, which led to the following exchange:

Me: If I did twitter, I would tweet "Things on Ben's nightstand: a glass of wine, an empty beer bottle, a piece of bread, and three mechanical pencils."
Ben: That's not true! It's two mechanical pencils and one pen. Also you left out that there's a receipt.

It's nice to be home.

Small rebellion

This appeared at the park near our house over the weekend:

Take that, The Man.

As seen in Philly

A giant green guy in a third story window:

That is all.

Autumn Express

Ben and I love trains, so when we heard about Amtrak's special Autumn Express train we bought tickets with only a mild amount of embarrassment. It was great to spend a day doing nothing but staring at pretty scenery, reading, and chatting. While we enjoyed the being-on-a-train aspect as well, we definitely weren't as enthusiastic as many of the other passengers - when the conductor announced that the train was being powered by some sort of historical engine or other, our car literally burst into applause.

Excited to be on a train, but not enough to applaud about it.

Look at that fall foliage!

Ben modeling the commemorative lunch bag. Yes, there were commemorative lunch bags.

They handed out brochures about the National Association of Railroad Passengers, figuring - pretty accurately, I'm sure - that people who pay money to ride around on a train going nowhere would also likely be interested in joining their train club. I was somewhat interested at first, until Ben pointed out that NARP is only one letter away from AARP (which also described the demographic of the vast majority of the other passengers). Perhaps in a few decades...

Goodbye, dress!

I always said I would donate my wedding dress after I was done using it, since I'll never wear it again so it might as well make someone else happy. After a year of it sitting in the back of our closet, I finally got around to actually donating it!

Me with my dress for the last time, right before dropping it off.

There are actually a number of places that accept wedding dress donations; I ended up going with Brides Against Breast Cancer - mostly because they were having an event in Baltimore this weekend, and I was going to Baltimore anyway to hang out with my sister. I have to admit to feeling a twinge when I handed the dress over, but now that it's gone I can't say I miss it, or even notice its absence. Here's hoping someone else loves wearing it as much as I did!