The Play...

Friday, December 3rd, was the opening night for the Oldham County High School play. They had not performed in a long time. It was great for this to get to do this again. Their play was entitled Puffs. It was a spoof on the Harry Potter movies. Hayden had the male lead role of Oliver Rivers. Bailey worked stage crew and had a bit part as a death buddy. They were so happy when the play finished that night and everyone in the audience enjoyed it so much. Great experience for them. 

These are pictures of Hayden as Oliver Rivers. He is the one wearing one of Claude's yellow ties.

These are pictures of Bailey as a death buddy and taking her stage bows at the end. Bailey is in the black shorts with the red scarf tied at her waist.

These pictures ate the closing stage bows with Bailey and Hayden in them.

Delightful evening. Happy to see these two growing up so nicely.

Getting Ready for Christmas...

Tuesday, November 30th it was time to begin the decorating process. We gave away a lot of our Christmas decorations when we left Sadieville. The object was to simplify. This also included simplifying how much decorating we did in Georgetown. There were a few things I was sure needed to stay a part of our decorating for the holidays. One was the Nativity in the front yard. It looks beautiful there by our little tree in the front yard. Ironically, if you go two houses down from ours, they have the same Nativity in their front yard. I do not see this as a bad thing when setting a good tone for Christmas.

We pulled out the boxes and placed things on the inside of the house to decorate it. Then Jake and I put the tree together. Alas, I have a box full of lights. Last year I put each strand in its own plastic bag. This year we pulled the first strand out and it worked fine. Then we pulled the next strand out and only half of it would light up. This happened with the next two strands also. One of these was a brand new strand of lights. We left it on for a bit and the other lights came on. We had one other strand of lights that worked and we put it on. Finally, on December 2nd, Claude was able to get to the store and purchase four more strands of lights. They didn't have any strands with 100 lights left. So he purchase two boxes with 50 on each strand and two boxes with two strands in each box of 150 lights. We were set to go. Jake and I finished the tree on December 2nd. It is such a pretty tree. Love it.

Thursday night, December 2nd, Claude and I went to Heritage Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Such a great show. We had excellent seats on the first row on the bottom tier of seats. It put is high enough to see over the people on the floor but low enough to be close to the orchestra. We were tight on time when we got there. Claude found parking but we walked very fast for what seemed a mile or more to the arena and then Claude got caught at security. He was setting off the alarm each time he tried to go through. He removed his keys. He removed his cell phone. He had not change. Not sure why the alarm kept going off. Finally the guard said, "Just go on through." It was time to start and there was a long line of people behind us. We found where to walk to our seat. Then terror struck. You see, we had to go down the entire flight of steps for that lower level and there was no hand rail. When you are in your 70's, you want a handrail. I was so afraid they would turn out the lights before we got the the bottom. We made it okay. Leaving the arena was a little easier but still a chore. Here are pictures of Trans Siberian Orchestra.

December 4th was the Elkhorn Creek Ward Christmas Party. Claude signed up to bring a dessert. He had a wonderful idea he really wanted to try. He used pie dough and my mini-muffin pans. With these he made a tart. Into that tart he put a mixture of blueberries and chopped up strawberries. Then he baked all that till the tart was done. Before we left for the church, Claude put a dollop of whipped cream on top of each one. Very nice bite-sized desserts. They were well received.

Sunday night, December 5th, we drove to Eastern Kentucky University Center for the Arts to see Mannheim Steamroller. While they do play a rock version of music, they are much more tame than Trans Siberian Orchestra. It was a great performance. Some new music I really enjoyed. We were the only people on our row and everyone was required to wear a mask. Enjoyed this music very much.

 

Christmas Date to Mustard Seed Hill...

Wednesday, December 1st, we enjoyed an outing to Mustard Seed Hill in Millersburg, Kentucky. This has become an annual tradition for us. This year made three years we have visited this site. This is how long they have been holding the event. Mustard Seed Hill is an old military academy. They are restoring it and this year opened two more buildings that have been restored. There were also additional lights. We were able to take Jake with us this year. We walked the grounds first and looked at the lights.

We then toured the main building which contained the winners of the Gingerbread House competition. 

The guide in the main building directed us to where the other gingerbread house entries were located. This was the first of the two new buildings opened this year. We enjoyed some more lights and then a stroll through this building. It also housed a huge nativity from Italy. Amazing.

It was at this point that Jacob realized he didn't have his cellphone. He and Claude went to the car to see if it fell out of his coat pocket. I stayed with the young men manning the doors while they checked to see if there was a lost and found we could look at. It turned out the phone was in the car. Yippee!!

With that issue settled, we headed to the craft building. This was the second of the new buildings that were open. We roamed it and left without purchasing anything. Lots of Kentucky made items for sale. 

We visited the hot beverage and sweet tent. The boys had hot chocolate and I had a bottle of water. Jake chose a sugar cookie, Claude chose and cinnamon roll, and I had a piece of homemade fudge. 

As we left to go to our car for the journey home, we passed the WKYT News crew recording a Christmas greeting. This is the local channel 7 that we watch when we watch news. 

We do enjoy this little venue. The lights are amazing. The gingerbread houses are always imaginative. It really make for an enjoyable evening.