Scattered Thoughts . . .

It is getting more and more crowded under our tree with each passing day!  We actually finished our Christmas shopping a looonnnnngggg time ago (at least a month ago) but we seem to be collecting more and more presents each day.   Our Christmas Spirit is growing with each present that is added under the tree and we're all looking forward to Christmas morning with anticipation and excitement. I know Lukey and Kenzie will have a magical Christmas... and there are a few nice gifts under the tree for Sheila as well! You see those 3d glasses on the stack of presents to the left?  That is a stack of presents wrapped in 3d "Frozen" wrapping paper...  "Elsa, Anna and Olaf" are jumping off the gifts!

A couple of weeks ago during Thanksgiving weekend, Sheila and I spent the bulk of the weekend in the Adirondack Mountains in Saratoga Springs with friends. The main purpose of our visit to Saratoga was to see the Canadian Pacific's Holiday Train but we had a little time to do a few other things as well. We had a really great time and, as usual, we left feeling as though we didn't have enough time there! Among doing all sorts of things in the few days we had in Saratoga, Sheila and I went for a walk through Congress Park one afternoon.  This particular park is home to war memorials, veteran memorials, multiple fresh water mineral springs known for healing and curative properties, an historical society museum (I'll write more about this museum in a future blog entry) , and a carousel. Although the calendar may disagree, it is pretty much wintertime here in the northeast so this wasn't exactly the best time to visit this park but we enjoyed ourselves enough to want

After we went to a Christmas Tree farm to cut Christmas trees this past weekend, we headed to a restaurant for a nice Christmas lunch. We've been doing this family Christmas lunch thing since the grandchildren were born four years ago. I don't think our intentions were to make this a tradition... I think we were just hungry that first year after cutting Christmas trees and lunch sounded like a good idea... after the second year of doing the same, we started thinking of it as a tradition. By now, it is definitely a nice tradition and something we look forward to each Christmas season.  Our lunch was delicious... the drinks were delicious... the desserts were delicious... the service was outstanding... and the atmosphere was warm, cozy and Christmassy... Arriving at the restaurant... Happy to see Gee again... I had to shoot a photo of this... I even advised Lukey to never attempt this in a real NY pizzeria... he was dipping his pizza in ranch dressing...

Here are some photos from yesterday's frigid excursion to the Christmas Tree farm. I still have some photos from our lunch at The Whip that I'll share sometime later... for now, here are the photos from the tree farm. The wind chill was below zero but we all were ready for the cold and dressed appropriately. Well... that reminds me, I could use some gloves which would be more appropriate for photography while out in freezing temperatures. I had to resort to having one bare hand to operate the camera. I could not operate my camera while wearing a glove. That being said, I dressed for the weather and I stayed warm though... with the exception of my right hand! We managed to get trees and move on to lunch very quickly which was nice. It was a really nice day! Getting some warmth... Getting a ride back to the cars with the trees in the back of the wagon... You can definitely see how cold it is in this photo!