Hi, everyone!
The weatherman says that we’ve had a record string of November days colder than their average temperatures! Our first snowstorm dropped about 8 inches of snow on us, and it hasn’t quite all melted yet!
There are still leaves on some of the trees, so the snow bent a lot of branches with a heavy load. Grandma said the snow was too warm and wet for me to take a snow bath!
Grandma started a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle while it was too snowy to work in the yard. Guess what? There was an extra piece in the box! Somebody else is missing part of the bell on the church, but it didn’t fit in our puzzle!
When the temperature got above freezing and some of the snow melted, I could see lots of berries on the holly bushes! Grandma and I got most of the holiday lights strung on the apple trees last week. We bought two new strings to replace the one that failed last year, but Grandpa wants us to wait to put them on the last two trees. He hopes the town will come pick up leaves again soon. If they do, they might snag those light strings with the loader when they pull the leaves out to the road!
The bay didn’t get as much snow as we did in Fairport, so we were able to drive out a week ago. Grandpa put up a very tall ladder in the living room so Grandma could spackle and repaint the parts of the ceiling where the roof windows were replaced by the roofers. I thought white ceiling paint was all the same color, but it turns out there are lots of different shades! The first white ceiling paint Grandma used matched nicely in the kitchen, but it didn’t match very well in the living room. The end of last week, Grandma got some paint custom-matched to the dried-up original paint and got up on the ladder again to repaint. That was a much better match, but still not perfect!
Almost all the snow at the bay was gone by last weekend, so Grandma and Grandpa could rake the rest of the leaves into the borders. Then Grandpa gave the lawn a final mowing for the year. After that, I helped Grandma and Grandpa build the cage to protect the rhododendron flower buds from getting eaten! Adding a net over the cage worked last year, and the buds survived to bloom in June. I hope the cage and net work again this year! Before we left the bay, we stacked the kayaks neatly in the downstairs bedroom. Except for draining the plumbing, the cottage is all ready for winter now!
On Sunday afternoon, Grandma and Aunt Kara and I took James and Thomas to the George Eastman Museum to see the gingerbread house display. In the first corridor, there were holiday wreaths, too! I liked the one with little people on it. I think Moose-san would really like the one with a moose!
There were a lot of fancy gingerbread mansions in the display, but there were other creations, too! I saw a gingerbread trolley and some storybook scenes. There was a Lorax display and the three little pigs’ houses.
The display also includes decorated tabletop Christmas trees. Grandma and I always look for the Blue Star Mothers tree. When we went into the music parlor, there was an electric train running around the big Christmas tree.
There were more gingerbread creations upstairs at the Eastman House! Aunt Kara had to lift up James so he could see into the gingerbread circus tent. Grandma had to lift me up so I could see it, too! There was another Lorax scene nearby. James and Thomas recognized the Millenium Falcon right away! Thomas liked the penguins made out of licorice. He wanted to make sure I saw the Snoopy scene, too!
James was starting to get silly! We took a break from gingerbread viewing and went to the photo discovery activities room. We all looked at the zoetrope — an early device that made still photos look like they were moving. Then James and Thomas tried making cartoon strips that would look like moving images in a zoetrope. After that we headed home!
We had Sunday dinner with Uncle Steven’s family. When Grandma and Grandpa and I got home, we had another job to do. We were getting a new refrigerator today, so we had to move all the food out of the old refrigerator! It’s a good thing we had a chilly night, so that all the refrigerated food would stay cold in the garage! This morning, the delivery men showed up with the new refrigerator before lunchtime. They decided to bring the new refrigerator in through the back yard and the kitchen sliding glass door! Then they took the old refrigerator out the same way and put it in the garage. I helped Grandma put all the food away, so we could put her car back in the garage! Now she knows what’s in every jar that was hiding in the back of the old refrigerator!
Thanksgiving is the end of this week, and Advent starts next Sunday. I’m getting ready by helping Grandma wrap Christmas presents and Advent calendars. Grandma says we can do a Reverse Advent Calendar again this year too!
Love,
Lion-san
8″ of snow already! Glad we only got a dusting. Loved the photos of the gingerbread houses and I especially loved the wreaths and best of all the one with the storybook people on it. Lovely. Happy Thanksgiving!