Look at that smile!

After nearly two years Lauren got her braces off today. She was so excited to be able to bite into an apple, eat Rollos, and Milk Duds. The orthodontist office gave her a bag with goodies in it - popcorn, Starbursts, Skittles, and Rollos. All the forbidden things you're not supposed to eat while you have braces on.

She looks fantastic!

25th Anniversary: Continued

With an anniversary just 5 days before Christmas our anniversary celebrations have usually amounted to going to a matinée movie, and "dinner" is the early-bird special somewhere. Since this was our 25th, we decided we'd do something a bit more special. Rewinding 25 years, when we were first engaged we came to New York in August of 1984. On a driving tour of Vermont, we stopped at The Four Chimneys for dinner. It was really nice and we've always talked about going back, so that's what we decided to do.

Once in Bennington we had planned to go to a particular restaurant that ended up being closed for the evening. Instead, we got a recommendation for Allegro Ristorante, which turned out to be fantastic. The food was great, but I have to say, they really need to ratchet up the thermostat in that place. Brrrrrr!

The Four Chimneys is a wonderful place to stay and we highly recommend it. Our room had a wood burning fireplace that had a fire already set to light. However, it still took some good old-fashioned Scouting skills to get the fire going. Once we did, it was perfect for the cold winter evening. It was remarkable how not one bit of smoke ever came in our room. I guess in the early 1900's it was important to know how to make good fireplaces and this was one of them. In the morning we had breakfast, which was delicious, at the inn sitting by a sunny bay window.

When we left we drove to Manchester along historic Rt. 7A, then back to Bennington. On our way home we stopped and took pictures of some beautiful churches and drove across a couple of covered bridges.

All in all, it set a new standard for how to celebrate anniversaries.



Thanks, Michelle, for 25 great years!

25th Anniversary

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. What a wonderful 25 years it's been. I hope the next 25 are just as good!

The Puzzle

Every Christmas season we get a Christmas puzzle to work on. This year's was the hardest, by far. We finished at 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 17th after getting home from a concert at the High School for Lauren and Jared. With about 10 puzzle pieces left we were convinced that some were missing because things just weren't going together right. We looked under the table to make sure none had fallen, and asked the kids if they'd taken pieces. They hadn't. It turns out that the bottom border of the puzzle was put together incorrectly. That's what made this puzzle so hard - there were several places where pieces could fit, but not be right. Now with 6 days until Christmas Lauren wants us to do another puzzle. Perhaps an easier one!

Wicked

Glen, Lauren, Helen and I all went to Wicked last night at Proctor's Theater.


It was so fun. None of us had seen it before. The singing was amazing and the costumes were fabulous. I'm so glad we went. We'd had the tickets since May - so it felt like a long time coming. But it was worth it!