My favorite gift this year was an 1858 edition of a collection of Wordsworth's poetry. It was so perfect, especially because we spent Christmas where he lived. I mentioned in briefly in my other post and was going to post pictures of it, but I had already posted the limit. So, here it is in all its beauty:
Sorry Tiff and everyone else who doesn't spend every waking moment on YouTube so they don't know what the Evolution of Dance is all about. Let me rewind a bit... This is the original Evolution of Dance...
The Evolution of Dance dude is back! The video was posted on the 9th and already has 1+ million views. Basically, he rocks.
Apparently, expensive blown glass pitchers don't do well in the microwave. They break and then mom gets sad. Wish someone had told me before I learned firsthand!
Christmas this year was wonderful. It seems to get better and better every year. Everyone but the Votaws and Lindsays (we missed you guys!) were there. We rented a cottage in Grasmere which is in the Lake District. It was a six hour drive and we got there at night in the pouring rain. We had lost the instructions that told us where the key was so we had to search in dark and wet. Eventually we found it and got all our stuff in. We were soaked but happy to have made it. Grasmere was beautiful. I can't describe it sufficiently so you are going to have to come out here and see for yourself. Every day we went on long hikes and walks and just enjoyed nature. Then we would spent the evenings playing games and relaxing. William Wordsworth is one of my favorite poets and lived in Grasmere when he wrote most of his best known poems. I got to go to his house there and learned more about his life. His poems are even more beautiful having seen his inspiration. I came away loving his poems more, but admiring his character less. I won't go on a rant, but all he did with his life was enjoy nature. He lived with three women (sister, wife, and sister in-law) to take care of the house and he even had them write his poems for him so he wouldn't have to strain his eyes. While he certainly lived a life doing no harm, he did not go out of his way to do any good. Or do anything (other than write poetry) for that matter. But, to the rest of the trip. Christmas eve was fun, we had a murder mystery dinner. Joe turned out to be the murderer, surprised? Christmas day was great, we had our traditional cinnamon toast for breakfast and opened presents. I got a beautiful Wordsworth book from 1858. It was actually given as a Christmas gift that year, and again 150 years later! Kinda cool! I love old books and it was so fitting for our trip too. After presents we went on another walk, made bread, and had a great dinner. It was so fun to have most of our family together. Joe and Ruth have already gone home, but Sariah is staying for another week! Hooray!
Egyptian murder mystery night
Our cottage, Little Parrock
Grasmere
John and I climbed everything we could
This just in: President Bush is a ninja and has cat-like reflexes. Sweet!
Oh, and don't throw shoes at the President. That's just disrespectful.
I really need to blog about things before I forget what happened. Thanksgiving is already starting to blur. It was a lot of fun though. We didn't want to deal with cooking all that food in our kitchen, and even if we had wanted to the turkey wouldn't have fit in our mini oven. Instead, we bought everything already made from Whole Foods. The food was great and the clean-up has never been easier. That night we went to Phantom of the Opera, and other than the fact that the phantom had nothing on Gerard Butler, it was really good. We really wanted to see Ivanov which was ending that week and had Kenneth Branagh starring in it. When we went to get tickets we were told that to get same day tickets people started lining up at 5:00 am even though the ticket booths weren't open until 10:00. Laura and I decided that it was definitely worth it and woke up long before the sun to get in line at five. We were determined to be first in line and we were. No contest there. Not a single person showed up until 7:30 and even then people didn't really start coming until 8:00. At least we got our tickets, and we did get to see a lot happen. We started making a list so we wouldn't think about how freezing it was or how insane we were for actually being there at five:
Drug dealers: 4
Drug deals: 2
Drunk people approach us: 3
Sworn at by drunk man after rejecting his advances: 1
Drunk man serenading us and then attempting to hug me: 1
Being assumed as homeless: 3
Police escort: 1
Tickets bought: 6
It was completely worth it, Ivanov was incredible. Kenneth Branagh did an amazing job and the others were very good too. A couple of them were in movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and Pride and Prejudice. So glad Laura and I were crazy enough to think standing in line in the freezing cold for five hours sounded like a good time.
We also went to two museums and wandered around wonderful London. It was a great Thanksgiving, I only wish all our family was there. But, most of them are coming to join us for Christmas. We are spending a week up at a cottage in the Lake District and I am so excited. We are staying in the town were William Wordsworth lived! He is one of my favorite poets and I think I will spend the whole trip quoting him. "My heart leaps up..."
