2019 Good Samaritan Christmas Celebration

Keeping with a tradition started by her cousins, Henry and Sadie, Lily took a starring role in her first Good Samaritan Day School Christmas Celebration. You can sense some apprehension in the Photos(link) and the Video below. Lily did a great job. Her singing enthusiasm can actually be heard above the other kids on the video. Great Job, Lily.

After the celebration, Lily returned to school. Meme, Poppy, Grammy and Pop-pop went to breakfast with a tag-along, Grace. Grace genuinely enjoyed breakfast; moving from crackers to fruit to pancakes and, finally, french fries. Boy, did she like the french fries! YES, Grace DID eat all of those french fries!

Eli's 1st Birthday

Family and friends gathered at Eli’s house to celebrate his first birthday. Everyone had a great time, especially the varied and delicious selection of food provided by Eli’s Mom and Dad. The food disappeared quickly. Eli enjoyed his birthday cupcakes, particularly the “blue stuff”. Lots of photos of Eli, as you might expect. Those are HERE. A short video is below.

Lily's 3rd Birthday

Lily’s third birthday was celebrated the entire week with a new bicycle, toy horses and ponies and other terrific gifts. Her party was held at the Saddlebrook Equestrian Center. Partygoers got to ride on real horses in the centers exercise ring. Face painting, snacks and the birthday cake were had upstairs in the oversight room. Some pics are here. A short video is linked below.

Grace Olivia's 1st Birthday.

Family came together at Grace’s house to celebrate her first birthday. Fantastic food and quite a few pictures by everyone (mine are here). Graces’s Mom baked her a special birthday cake. For some reason, Grace seemed very reticent to try her birthday treat. Her uncle stepped in to set some good example on how to handle such a situation. Here’s a video of Grace and her cake.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Merry Christmas, Everyone! This year, we had our annual Christmas Eve gathering with family. We had great food and fine drinks, including wine, great beer and fine port. Of course, the yearly Christmas Cracker opening was noisy and fun with everyone wearing their colorful paper Yule crowns.

Later Christmas Eve, the trees were embellished with all of the gifts for children, grandchildren and family and it was time to take some photos.

Christmas Day was fun with visits to the Kleins and the Drayos in the morning to see all of the presents that Santa delivered. That was followed by gatherings at our home to open gifts…chaos. Then, dinner with many family members. A wonderful Christmas, again! Photos in the “Photos” section.

It's Christmas Party time. And, cookie time!!

Phoenixville Country Club had their annual Kids Christmas Party this week. As normal, I tried to take some photos but the grandkids were very focused on the arts and crafts tables and food. Limited mobility (bad knees) reduced my photo count, but I got a few. I managed to get a few shots of all the grandkids with Santa. As you might expect there were some protests expressed their discontent with the time it was taking to get a good photo.

Everyone had fun, it seems.

Parties were followed by yet another annual rite, baking Christmas cookies. On the menu Toll House chocolate chip cookies, butter cookies with decoration and Hungarian nutballs.

Photos in the Photos section.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

It's the Christmas Season. Like Trains?

Here’s a video that I shot in 2014 of a marvelous Christmas tree that was designed (I should say engineered) by Bill Henning of Henning’s Model Trains in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Having lived in Lansdale for twenty-eight years, I knew the Hennings very well. Bill built this tree for the Lansdale Christmas Tree Display, a holiday fundraiser.

The tree has trains climbing from the bottom to the top on the outside of the tree. Then, the same train plummets down the inside of the tree to return to its starting place at the bottom. The tree is decorated with Department 56 buildings and characters and other appropriate pieces. A candy-cane commuter train circles the top of the tree.

The tree was simply stunning and this video doesn’t do it adequate justice. It was the cover story for a major model railroading magazine for 2015. I was fortunate to provide Bill Henning with the photo that was used for the cover shot. You can also see one of my photos displayed behind the counter at Hennings Model Trains. I’m so proud of those honors.

There are two men pictured in the video; one is Bill Henning, still working on the final touches of the tree. The other is Harry Henning II, the patriarch of the Henning train clan.

If you are ever near Lansdale, stop it. Henning’s is a disappearing piece of history, kept going by a strong family of model train enthusiasts. You might see Harry II, Harry III or Bill there.

Enjoy the video. Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday, Josh!!

We were lucky that our grandson, Joshua, was home for Thanksgiving which allowed us to have a quick birthday celebration of his 20th birthday before he headed back to Penn State. Cousins, aunts and uncles celebrated with Josh, his parents and granddad (me). Grammy was under the weather and didn’t want to spread her illness, so she remained home.

A few pictures are in the Photos area and a short video of the most important moment is below.