A Good Saturday

Saturday was a day of family Christmas fun. Dave read in the morning paper about this great holiday-themed farmer's market happening right outside a historical mansion in the next town over. We bundled up, shoved the wagon in the back of the car and headed over to check it out. We wandered the streets and shopped all the different booths selling local honey, olive oil, fruit, nuts, homemade jams and warm drinks. We had to get a bag of the made-in-front-of-us kettle corn because the smell was simply irresistible.

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All the market stands were great, but a real highlight was getting to tour the mansion built and decorated in the late 1800's. The docents were dressed in elaborate Victorian costumes and pointed out interesting things in each room. Ella and Delia really loved seeing the "Big fancy house" especially the kids' room with the antique dolls and tea party dishes.

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Another cool part of the festival was the street performers. We watched this group for a while, just because it was so funny-- grandmas in Santa hats and Christmas sweaters playing Christmas songs on their ukuleles! Of course, Delia danced.

After the festival, we stopped at the nursery to pick up some plants for our winter vegetable garden (gonna try lettuce this winter.) Inside the nursery we admired the dozens of decorated trees and mega-train set with just about every Dickens Village figurine that has ever been made.

The night ended with a fund-raising dinner at church. Our GEMS hosted a brand-new Western-themed dinner that was sooo awesome! We giggled at Dave and Pastor Bruce's pictures on the Want Ads, avoided being put in jail and played all the games (horse shoes, fishing hole, shooting gallery, panning for gold, etc.). Dave and I dressed up in borrowed cowboy gear (the girls were wearing their own thanks to Delia's Halloween costume) and had our family picture taken. But we spent the majority of the night on horseback! That's right. We have lots of horse owners in our church and someone brought a whole trailer full of them for rides around the parking lot. Poncho and Ellen were good friends by the end of the night! :)