101 Dalmations...or at least 6 Dalmations

Most of our family loves theater. When we heard about an opportunity for Tristan to participate in a short, winter break theater camp he said sign me up! The 12 actors and actresses from age 7-16 put on the play 101 Dalmations, the musical. Tristan played the part of Horace who is one of Cruella DeVille's evil henchmen. He had a great time and looks forward to participating with this group again in the future. One of the funny things was the fact that Tristan was paired up with the youngest cast member for a truly big and little Horace and Jasper pair. It worked well and their scenes were very comedic. Tristan found that he had to remind his little buddy a few times and would give him a little nudge or a poke to get him going, it was cute.  Due to the snow the kids had only two long days to practice the play and then had to move from a full stage to a small community center stage due to weather issues and a leaky roof. I was amazed that they pulled it off so well.

Brussel sprouts and greens, last garden hold outs of the season

Our milder than usual start to winter has allowed many crops to continue growing well. I hoped to use my own Brussel sprouts for our day after Christmas dinner at home and was able to pick them not long before we ate them.  Also picked and cooked some assorted late kale and greens. I do wonder if this very late starting winter has affected the garlic, won't know until next summer.

One of seven Brussel sprout plants that I grew.

Rufus helps me harvest the Christmas Brussel sprouts.

Hopefully I will grow a larger crop of Brussel sprouts next year.

Stormy helps in the winter garden.

I think this is larger than fall planted garlic should have gotten before winter sets in.

Felix didn't help harvest the late crops, he stayed indoors all cozy.

Brussel sprout plants.

Fall planted garlic.

garlic plants, December 26.

Christmas 2015

Certainly wouldn't have guessed last Christmas that my mother would be diagnosed with Alzheimer's and we would be spending the very next Christmas visiting my mom in a nursing home. This is not something any of us really have come to terms with yet, mom included but we tried to make the bet of it.

At least we had our Christmas crackers and crowns. Christmas dinner in the dining room at the nursing home.

Some of the kids opening gifts in moms room at the nursing home, some nurses watched them for a while it was odd.

Back at home Stormy guards the Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve Day 2015

We spent Christmas eve day seeing Star Wars The Force Awakens at an imax theater. Afterwards we did some shopping. We bought our tickets, loaded up with goodies and a big pail of popcorn in a star wars bucket and enjoyed the show. This was a fun way to spend Christmas eve day especially since the weather remains fall-like and winter hasn't truly set in yet so the long-ish drive to the movie theater wasn't bad at all.

Animal Adventures Christmas party

We visited Animal Adventures only a week ago but decided to return for the Christmas Party. It turned out that mom would be able to interact with her new favorite animal there, one of the owls. Also Colin hadn't gone with us last week and I knew he would be happy to see the animals, particularly the lizards, snakes and crocodilians.  So off we went on another trip to Massachusetts to pick up Mom at the nursing home, take her for some final Christmas shopping and then take her to the Christmas party. It was actually a nicer visit than last weekend because last time they didn't take out many animals and the show was mostly animals we already keep or have kept or know a lot about. This time we had a nice, educational chat with someone very knowledgeable in the reptile room, we're able to hold and interact with more animals and the big one, mom got to visit with her favorite owl.

Kangaroo sleeping.

Mom with monkey

Colin with monkey

me with monkey

a trip to animal adventures

We hadn't been to animal adventures in quite some time and heard there had been a lot of updates. This week we decided to visit and take mom there since it's fairly near her nursing home. It was fun to see old animal friends and new and see the updates that have been done to the buildings. It's very nice although it seems to have lost some of that personal touch that the place had back when the kids did the zoo school classes.

Hayley and Grammy looking at the dinosaur remains.

Hayley's birthday and a Christmas Carol

Today is Hayley's birthday, it's also the day to go see A Christmas Carol at the Palace Theater. Hayley didn't want to attend the show but didn't mind some of us attending even though it was her birthday. She's a good kid like that...errrr young adult. I can't get used to having some who are still officially kids and some who are young adults. My couple pictures from A Christmas Carol, mainly us in the audience, didn't come out so I'll use a couple from online. It was a fantastic and well done show which we enjoyed a lot.



A Christmas Carol photos (from online not my own):

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAYLEY