House Hunting!

Hi, everyone!

We had our first snow, the Friday after Election Day!  Then the weather got warmer again and the snow melted.  Even though the leaves were still on the apple trees, Grandma and I put the Christmas lights on them on one of the warmer, drier days.

Last week, Grandma took me to the George Eastman Museum to see the gingerbread houses!  George Eastman was a very famous man in Rochester.  He invented the Kodak camera and made lots of money.  He built a mansion that has now become a museum about photography and film.  After the residence was built, Eastman cut it in half and moved part of it backwards to make room for a big conservatory.  I made an elephant friend there and got to see the music rolls for the self-playing organ!  Then I made friends with some very old motion picture equipment and some early Kodak cameras.

Every year around Thanksgiving, the museum has a special set of holiday displays.  Local people and groups decorate gingerbread houses and wreaths and table-top Christmas trees.  Many of them are auctioned off to support the museum.   Some of the gingerbread houses were very fancy, and some of them weren’t houses at all!  It was fun to see all the different cookies and candies and snacks the builders  used to decorate the gingerbread.

After Grandma and I looked at the gingerbread creations, we visited the wreaths and the table-top trees.  One of the wreaths was made of shells and reminded me of the shell museum we visited in Florida last winter.  Blue Star Mothers have children on active duty in military service.  Some years, we get suggestions from the local organization for soldiers to receive  Ground Hog Day cookies.  I liked their tree!  In the gift shop, I made friends with bristle ornaments that reminded me of ones we bought in Brisbane Australia.

Seeing all the holiday decorations made Grandma decide to finish Christmas shopping for Uncle Steven’s family and get the packages in the mail.  I helped Grandma with the customs forms.  The on-line customs forms  will only accept four items per box and that’s not enough for the presents we send!

Guess what?  We STILL have green leaves on some of our trees in Fairport, even though we had a hard frost more than a week ago.  Yesterday was warm and dry, so Grandma and Grandpa did more leaf pickup.  Look at how big my leaf pile was!

This morning, the town came to pick up all the leaves!  First they used leaf blowers to move my leaf pile out into the middle of the street.  Then the loader picked up big chunks of the pile and put them in a dump truck.  Grandma and Grandpa were very happy they’d taken the time to rake yesterday, even though there are more leaves down today!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day!  Grandma and Grandpa and I are going to have dinner with Joe-san and Nancy-san and Moose-san and Tilly.  Grandma and I will bake an apple pie and Nancy-san and Moose-san will make a plum pudding.  Last year, we were all in Japan for Thanksgiving and it snowed in Tokyo!  Then on Friday, Uncle David is coming for the weekend.  He is here from Japan on a business trip.  There will be lots of adventures for the holiday season!

Love,

Lion-san