The Holidays...

On  Monday, December 18th, we drove from Arlington, Virginia to Tallmadge, Ohio to spend the holidays with Thom's family and our kids.  We left fairly early as Porter's people got back early in the morning ( 1 am) from their cruise.  We drove to Hagerstown (about 1 1/2 half hours) to walk at the Martin "Marty" Snook Memorial Park, because it was right off of highway 76 and very convenient.  It had a mile long trail (so 2 miles out and back) which was perfect.  We also didn't want to wait as we were heading into rainy weather.

It was a great little walk.  At about 3/4 of a mile in, we came upon Marty's Mystical Woods.  It was a clearing in the woods with carvings of characters, including Gnomes, a spider, bears, and more.  The carvings make up some of the play structures design as a safe and friendly playground for kids.  My thought was the play area was Marty's idea and he was a carver.  But when I researched it, I found I was wrong.  Marty was a four-term Washington County commissioner and another guy came up with the idea after the removal of a stand of ash trees (emerald ash bore infestation) left a desolate clearing along the trail.  It is a really cool use of the space and a fun little treat along the trail.

Photos from Marty L. Snook Memory Park

After our walk, we continued tour drive to Tallmadge through rain and then eventually snow.  In fact,  Tallmadge ended up with several inches of snow, but it did not last as temperatures were warm for Christmas. 

Monday as we arrived

Tuesday morning

Quickly vanishing snowmen in the neighbors yard

We arrived in Tallmadge, in time to pitch in for the Christmas Day celebration.  This was the first Christmas Day since 2019, the majority Nancy's (Thom's mom) kids, grandkids, and greats would make to the Christmas Day dinner and it would have to be special.  Nancy is a first generation Italian and if you not sure what that might look like at the holidays, watch "The Feast of Seven Fishes".  This is a great holiday traditions of an Italian family.  Nancy said that they did not necessarily do "seven fishes", but Christmas Eve was an important part of the celebration when see was growing up.  

For me, I enjoyed the movie as it depicts a non-Italian, girl's first encountered after going on date with one of the grandson's.  I could relate.  The event that comes to mind, was a Thanksgiving dinner in 1986 (shortly after we had moved back from California to Columbus, Ohio).  We met at Thom's aunts house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Thom's parents both grew up in different areas of Pittsburgh although his dad was not of Italian descent.  In my family, Thanksgiving was pretty traditional turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes, canned cranberry sauce, green bean or broccoli casserole, and pumpkin pie,  The only real deviation was that my dad liked canned oysters in his stuffing.  At Thom's aunt house, there was an antipasto tray with assortment of meats, cheese, and other stuff as soon as you entered the house.  It was a smallish row house that had been the house that was Nancy's parents.  Then dinner consisted of the the traditional Thanksgiving food and a big dish of manicotti.  At their family events (even to this day) desserts out-numbered the other food and cheesecake and cookies are always present.  The last memory of the day is cramming a lot of people around the table to eat n  that it was lively and a little noisier than holiday celebrations with my family.

So I helped by baking some cookies for our Christmas celebration, doing a lot of the shopping, and whatever else I could do.  As Christmas Day neared I helped with food prep, visited with family, and welcomed my own kids as they appeared.  Nancy baked her specialties of biscotti, pizzelles and ice cream balls (with Thom's help).

Christmas Eve, we have a traditions of latkes.  This started when Kim was in first grade and a fellow student brought latkes for a holiday celebration at school.  Kim wanted us to make some on Christmas Eve.  We often have Italian Wedding Soup on Christmas Eve, but opted for brie in puff pastry, salad, and latkes.  We attended church service with Nancy and then Thom left to pick up Matt from the Cleveland Airport.

Nancy's neighborhood has long had a tradition of put a luminary out on the street with most neighbors participating.  In the past, the luminary was paper bags, sand to anchor them and candles that need to be lit.  This year, there was a nice upgrade with battery tea lights and luminary bags with cut outs.  It was much easier and safer too.

Luminary in Tallmadge Woods

On Christmas Day, 24 members of the family started staggering in around 4 pm as we finished final preparations for the meal.  Fortunately, the ham, fried cauliflower, potato casserole, cheesecake, various cookies, fruit tray, vegetable tray were brought by other members of the family.  Nancy was making roast beast and traditional spaghetti with bread crumbs.  I was finishing up the roasted vegetables, vegan butternut squash wellington, salad, and brie wrapped in pastry appetizer.  Matt did guacamole and gravy.  There were 21 adults, 3 small girls, and 1 baby.  Everything came together as family arrived.  It was the first Christmas gathering of this size since before Covid.  

Thom's new sweater from Kim and James

Kim and James gift to Nancy (photo from her 90th birthday party)

The food was great and desserts were plentiful.  Gifts and games completed the evening extravaganza, and another great Christmas was in the books.  

Covid still loomed as an unwelcomed specter, as my niece and family had planned to join us in Tallmadge to celebrate with their two girls.  My niece let us know before Christmas that she had Covid and they would not make the trip.  Kim and James will be staying with us longer, as they had planned to spend next weekend with his parents back in Wisconsin.  They had a Covid exposure and so their Christmas plans are postponed.   

You don't know poop...

Saturday was our last scheduled event.  We went to see the Holiday Light Display at  National Zoo.  I remembered three things about the National Zoo from our previous visit:  1)  the escalator out of the subway at Woodley Park -- Zoo Stop was very long,  2) the orangutangs can traverse on lines that go over the walkways at the zoo, and 3)  the zoo is a fairly small zoo.  

We took Porter for a walk and sat outside for a bit with Alex while Porter and Augie played around noon.  I did a little packing and cleaning, but most of the cleaning we saved for Sunday as it is predicted to raining starting around 2 pm.  We can do the cleaning while it is raining.

We left for the zoo around 3:45 pm.  We wanted to be able to get to the zoo when it opened at 5 pm.  Although they were doing maintenance on some of the metro lines, our route to the metro route to the zoo was opened and we had no problem getting to Metro Center and then catching the red line to Woodley Park.  As I remembered, the first escalator out of the subway is very long.  In fact, it is 204' long and yet is the third longest in the DC Metro area. The link is a video on Facebook of someone riding the escalator.  Once we were out of the subway, it was 4 blocks to the zoo.  

Woodley Park Metro Station

We arrived at the zoo and went through the line to check in and then we started our walk through the amazing National Zoo lights.  The light displays were very well done and definitely not flashy or gawdy like some displays can be.  The trees were decorated in many place with lights all way out on the largest branches.  The best part of the display were the scenes with animals made out colorful parachute like fabric over metal frames. In the zoo lights literature, they are referred to as animal lanterns.  These were lit from within and were really beautiful.  We made our way down the single path seeing each of the light displays.  We ended up at the other end of the zoo which is also an entrance or exit.  We decided to walk back through the display, so that we could exit from the same place that we came in as it was close to the subway. 

It was not surprising that it was getting very crowded as we made our way back through.  The temperatures were still in the 50s and it was a very comfortable night to be at an outdoor exhibit.

Although it was dark and there were very few live animal displays; we did see the Orangutang Transport System or  O-Line.  These are the series of 50 foot high towers with cables suspended across them that I remembered from our previous visit.  The orangutangs can use the lines to get from the ape house to the think tank (another area of the zoo) by crossing over the people walkways.  They can get off of them until they get the other area.  Click the o-line link for a video of the a mother orangutang and her baby on the O-line.  

The following are some our photos from our visit to the Holiday Light Display at the National Zoo.

Orangutangs

Jellyfish and coral

Sea turtles and coral

Ocean plantlife

Purple dolphins (I think Rori would like this)

Mama and baby giraffe

The only panda left at the DC Zoo

An iguana

Seals or sea lions (not sure which)

Singing tree display

Penguins (some of the penguins wings moved)

The moose head moved

Artic foxes (I think)

A colorful chameleon

Macaws

A frog

Zebras

The lions

Meerkats

Armadillos

Camels and cacti

More cacti

Among the cacti

Jellyfish

The lights as you enter the zoo

Light reading will in the restroom stall

Two More Amazing Days...

Thursday, we had matinee tickets (2 pm) to A Christmas Carol at the Ford's Theatre.  We had an early lunch and left for the Metro Center subway stop, so that we had time to walk there and see the museum at the theatre.  This is an interesting part of DC with new buildings, old buildings, and the facades of old buildings blended into new buildings.  We enjoyed the walk to the theatre and were able to see the exterior of the house (which is still there among the new buildings) where Lincoln died.  The Petersen House at 516 10th Street is now a part of the National Park System (as are may sites in DC).  It was the home of William and Anna Petersen.  On April 14, 1865, when the President was mortally wounded, he was carried to the back bedroom and over 90 people came through the house to pay their last respects to the dying president.  We did not have time for a tour of the interior.  We cross the street and headed to the Ford's Theatre.  We picked up our tickets at will call and then headed to the basement of the theater to see the museum exhibit.  The exhibit was about the life of Abraham Lincoln and his presidency.  

The facade of the Metro Center Station

The Petersen House  -- The House where Lincoln Died

The plaque commemorating the building as a historic site

The Ford's Theatre

Current entrance to the theatre ticket office and museum

One of my favorite pieces, was a quilt that was raffled as a fund raiser to the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War.  The Sanitary Commission was a precursor to the American Red Cross, helping to provide needed support to soldiers during the war.  The quilt was auctioned off in 1864 in Philadelphia and was signed by 56 well-known people of the period, including the President and vice-President.

We did not have time to see all of the museum before we needed to head to our seats.  The theatre is small by today's standards and all seats (even the balcony seats) have a good view of the stage.  The Presidential Box where the actor, John Wilkes Booth sneaked into shoot the presidents; remains as it was on April 14, 1865.  The exterior of the box is draped in an American Flag.  The interior is closed to the public to protect it from damage.

The interior of Ford's Theatre

This rendition of The Christmas Carol was stellar and all the actors / actresses were amazing.  There were school student groups seated near us and the were so well - behaved.  This was an awesome experience.

After the performance, we had about an hour until our reservation at the City Tap at Penn Quarter for dinner.  As we walked toward the restaurant, we noticed tents and a sculpture down and block and decided to check it out.  We found a Winter Market Penn Quarter right outside of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  This museum sits in the Penn Quarter area away from the National Mall and the other museums.  We did not have time to go in, but we did have time to enjoy the various crafts at the Winter Market.  One of our favorites, was the photos of arranged Star Wars Legos.  If your interested, check at Joe Shymanski on facebook.  We also got our photo (thank you kind strangers), at one of the photo spots in front of the art museum.  This is a really interesting area of DC, with so many interesting buildings.  The current home of the Capitols Ice Hockey and Wizards Basketball teams was across the street from the museum.  We have been hearing in the news about the teams moving to Alexandria.  This is rather controversial.  You can click the link to read more.

The Winter Market and Blue Sculpture to the left of the photo

More of the market

The Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Photo Spot

Man with a Briefcase (outside of the Art MuseumI)

On our way to the City Tap, we passed one of the arches to China Town.  There was definitely a different feel to the area.  Our dinner was good and with our early reservations, it was not busy.  After dinner, it was a quick walk to the Metro Center through a beautiful street decorated with white lights.

Archway to China Town

Interesting building not far from China Town

Lights on the high end shopping street

A park with lights (we saw it previously in the day time)

Friday, we had another big show at 7 pm.  While Thursday, was cold for DC barely topping 45 degrees for a high, Friday was in the mid-50s and sunny.  It felt so much more comfortable.  We enjoyed the mile walk from our Red Line stop on the subway to the National Cathedral, where we had tickets to hear the King's Singers a Capella group perform.  The groups is phenomenal and the acoustics in the cathedral were really good.  This was a holiday performance that also included a tribute to the 100 years of Disney.  The first half of the show was more traditional, while the second half was Disney and standard holiday fare.  All of it was really good. 

The King's Singers are a world renowned group that officially formed in 1968 with six recent choral scholars from King's College in Cambridge, UK.  The initial group was made up of two countertenors, a tenor, two baritones and a bass, and the group has stuck to this singular formation ever since that debut.  

We enjoyed the walk through a beautiful neighborhood with many Christmas lights.  The view of the cathedral a night was spectacular.  This was a fantastic two days of holidays shows.

The National Cathedral