Gardner Village

Jamie and Baby Lily

So, we (okay, just me) had made it a tradition to go up to Gardner Village as a family each year in October for Halloween. Even though Cassidy knew it was coming, I usually had to drag him up there with a mild amount of kicking and screaming. I have always wanted to go during Christmas, but because of the great effort involved in just getting him to go once, I knew it would just be unheard of to go two times in one year! This year, we obviously weren't able to make it for Halloween, so I was excited to be able to go up for Christmas with a willing volunteer (my sister). We drove up yesterday afternoon, and had a great time walking around, looking in the shops, and eating delicious soup from the Naborhood Bakery. They had lots of elves all around, similar to the witches displayed during Halloween. There was a scavenger hunt to find certain elves, and then redeem the paper for a sugar stick at Sweet Afton's. I love that they have the scavenger hunt because it kept Parker entertained enough for us to look in a few shops and then go back out to search for more elves. He would get so excited when he would see more elves. The only downside to the outing was that it was raining and Parker seemed to be an expert at finding the biggest puddles. That would actually be alright with me, except that he hates getting his clothes wet. If an article of clothing gets wet, he feels like it needs to come off immediately. Certainly made for an interesting afternoon.