Our First Christmas

Christmas was quite a day for two easy going socks like us. We started with a drive to Liz's parent's house. We took in the holiday sights along the way (and were "treated" to Liz's renditions of holiday classics like "Happy Holidays," "Winter Wonderland," and the entire Elvis Christmas album. The girl really likes her Christmas music!)

This is the famous "bear on the fountain" that marks the center of the town where Liz grew up and where her parents still live. A little further on we easily found her street by the festive sign that marked its start...

Apparently at night it is lit from top to bottom.

Once we arrived the feasting and tearing began. Food was everywhere and boy did it smell great! Before we could really dig in and enjoy all of the goodies the presents had to be opened. Box after box was filled with things only someone like Liz could enjoy until, as the very last package was ripped open, finally something we could enjoy, too...

They say Christmas is about family, well ours just got a lot bigger! Now that we aren't the "new socks in the drawer" anymore we will have to take these new members of our family under our careful guidance.

We chatted with the new socks and told them that Liz was okay as long as you didn't mind the singing and the rampant bunny that was unusually attracted to chewing anything in its path.

After everyone stuffed themselves to the point of groaning we set out through the cold night to enjoy some of the local holiday displays. One in particular dwarfed all of the rest. For what had to be at least a quarter of a mile we were blinded by holiday lights and deafened by cheerful Christmas music projecting from hidden speakers around the most incredible house we have ever seen.

After so much excitement we were glad to be home and tuck in for a well-deserved night's sleep.

Merry Sock Christmas!

What would Christmas be without a pair of beautiful stripey socks hanging from the mantle?



We were very excited to be included in the holiday happenings but what's up with the "goodies" we were stuffed with? A spider and a bat?! The bat is kinda cute but that spider is huge! We guess Santa knows best...


Merry Christmas everyone!

Lending a Toe

Seeing as Liz works at a nature center and we go there a lot, we thought maybe we would be able to lend a toe and help with some of the work. Liz thought long and hard and finally came up with something quite fun: Project FeederWatch.

Once a week we stare through binoculars at the bird feeders outside the nature center. We figure out what birds are visiting and then we count how many of each species come on each day.

We've never really spent much time appreciating the birds so we were surprised at how lovely many of them really are. And the equipment is cool, too! It's like those binoculars were made just for us...two sides so we can be comfortably next to each other and don't have to wait our turn to look at the birds.

This one is called a red-breasted nuthatch. Weird name but we kind of like it. It is very fast when coming to the feeder for seeds. It grabs one and then woosh! it's off again. If you stare at it long enough it even looks a little bit like us. Notice the stripey head and the colors are very close to our own.