Lancaster's Main Street Winter Carnival

Chadmo, Dylan-Roo, & I bundled ourselves up and went to Lancaster's Winter Carnival today. I just learned about it from a friend's facebook post this morning, but now I think it's something I will watch out for every year! As Dylan gets a little bit older, there are all sorts of fun kid activities like Christmas cookie decorating, ornament decorating, horse drawn carriage rides, a Christmas-sweater-sporting-Alpaca petting zoo, free photos with Santa, dancing with Santa, and winter "wonderland" tours scattered through many of the various businesses downtown. We did the adult+infant version today and observed the Christmas alpacas & horse drawn carriage ride from a distance, went to lunch at Four Reasons Bistro (where I had delicious hot apple cider!), and then went on tours of The Sherman House and the Georgian House museums (free to the public as part of the festival!) We really had a lovely time - it felt great to get out as a family & do something fun! :)

Daddy & Dylly posing next to the Christmas tree in the bistro where we had a tasty lunch. I had to make Chadmo look over his shoulder so you could see Dylan's face in the picture too, but I like it even though it's far from a natural pose! :)

A close-up of our cute little Miss, bundled up in her snowsuit & packed in the Baby Bjorn. I wish that silly date stamp wasn't there!

The Stevelt-Mitchell Family (sans poodles) posing in front of General W.T. Sherman's portrait on Dylan's (and Daddy's) first tour of the Sherman House museum!

The Sherman House is actually the house that General Sherman was born in & grew up in, as one of 11 kids. It has an amazing number of original pieces of furniture, personal items, maps, flooring, needlework, letters, etc from the whole Sherman family. It even has a piece of hard tack from the civil war - you can look at the back of it and see where it was infested with bugs at one point, as so much of it was during the war - YUCK! Outside of the house they have authentic 'kitchen' and 'medicinal' gardens, not that they're much to look at this time of year, but still it's crazy to think about growing your own medicine. The Georgian House is a huge, beautiful, Federal style mansion that was built by a wealthy business man by the name of McCracken. It traded hands several times over the years, and was even a tea room during World War II. Then it was almost condemned before it was rescued by the Historical Society & restored to its' previous grandeur. It doesn't have too much along the lines of the original furniture or personal belongings of the McCracken's, but it is all done with authentic pieces from that time, and much of the furniture was built in Fairfield county. It has all sorts of cool things like a dry well, servants kitchen with a dumbwaiter, carpets made in England, a table & chairs that were originally made for the first White House but then it burned down before it could be delivered, the most amazing staircase you've ever seen, etc.

I'd toured both of these homes when I was in 4th or 5th grade with my TAG (talented & gifted) class. I remembered the Sherman well, but not so much the Georgian. We really had a lovely time touring them today & showing Dylan off. She was a model citizen and snoozed away in her Baby Bjorn the whole time - she received many oohs & aahs from the docents and other tourists alike.

Yesterday evening the 3 of us went up to Lancaster to cruise around the mall for a bit, grab a quick dinner, and then Dylan helped us pick out her first Christmas tree! Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera along for that, but she picked out a very nice 7-8 foot Frasier Fir. :) We'll get a picture of her with it once we get it up & decorated (hopefully tomorrow.) We were at Lowe's, and she "sat up" in the seat in the front of the cart (with lots of help from me of course), and she loved the fluorescent lights & all the various Christmas lights & noise makers! I love Christmas time!!