Gingerbread Magic

The Daytona Beach West Rotary Club has a gingerbread house contest and display at the Volusia Mall.   In order to get up close to the houses you have to pay $2.00, which benefits United Palsy of East Central Florida.

We paid our $2.00 and entered the Gingerbread Magic wonderland.  Not all the creations were made of gingerbread.  We saw cereal, licorice sticks, popcorn, marzipan people, water and lights.  There were adult and children entries.  All of them were terrific.  The details in Santa's workshop, the pagoda and the ship wreck were amazing.  Many hours were spent on each display.  The smell was delicious.  


I couldn't believe I didn't have my camera with me!  The next morning we were in the area of the mall and stopped for a cup of coffee.  It was early and only the mall walkers were about.  I lifted the chain separating the displays from the riff-raff and snapped away.  I hope you in joy them.


As soon as I got back home I made a pan of gingerbread.

Daytona Turkey Run

Is there a better way to spend the Thanksgiving holiday than going to a car show?  Not when it is the largest car show, flea market, and craft show in the Southeast!  Plus, it is held at the Daytona 500 site.

The clouds were dark, the wind was picking up, but the day was far from over when we headed to the International Speedway.  I was alternately hot and cold all day depending on how the sun was peeking out of the sky.  There were over 4000 cars (yes, 4000) at the show.

We walked for four hours and I don't care if I ever see another car again.  No, I never made it to the craft show.  My feet were aching and we still had to walk to our car, which was a good mile away.

There were old cars

and new cars

There were gas-fueled cars

and jet-fueled cars

There were little cars

There were big cars

Who could forget TheThing?

This looks like the first car I ever owned
I paid $600.00 for it in 1973

My dad gave me a car like this back
in 1979

Wouldn't I look cute in this baby?

Shrek the Halls

Here it is Thanksgiving and our eldest son couldn't get away for the weekend, so the three of us travelled to Daytona Beach to spend the holiday with him and the rest of our family who live in Kissimmee.

Since Andrew is single again, I wanted to spend quality time with just the four of us.  Our first adventure was to see the Shrek the Halls ice exhibit at the Gaylord Palms Hotel.  40 artisians from China spent over a month carving the ice sculptures.  Our reservation was for 5:30, but we got caught in a traffic jam on I-4 and didn't make it until 6:30.  No problem.  We got right in.

When I pulled out 4 pairs of gloves the boys all poo-pooed me and said they weren't going to wear gloves in the Florida.  We each donned a shapeless blue coat with a hood and no pockets and as soon as we opened the door to the frigid 9 degree temperature, we all had our gloves on.  The sculptures were frozen solid and smooth to the touch.  The colors were vivid and the sculptures had a glow as if lit from within.

The Gaylord Palms is a huge square building with an atrium in the middle.  There are five restaurants, shops, waterfalls, ponds and walkways inside.  We stopped to see alligators and look for  polar bears hidden amongst the foliage.

The hotel is beautiful and worth the trip.  We were really in the holiday spirit by the time we left.

The Christmas tree in the atrium

Wooly Worms

Wooly worms appear in the fall.  They are caterpillars that are 
able to survive through the winter because they have bristly
hair all over their bodies.  Wooly worms have thirteen
distinctive black and reddish-brown bands that have become
a rule of thumb for forecasting the thirteen weeks of winter.

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, the longer the 
middle brown band,  the milder and shorter the coming
winter; the shorter the brown band, the  longer and more
severe winter will be.

Here's a wooly worm I found on my front porch.  There are two 
black lines on his head, or is it his butt?, follwed by lots of 
brown and then some more black and a tad of brown.  What 
he's trying to say is that the winter will start out 
nasty, get better, then nasty again ending with a warm spell.

His little brother said the same thing.  It looks like I better get out 
my woolies soon as the nasty stuff is coming.

Crumb Party

Ashe County has its very own quilt guild that I have been meaning to join for the past few months.  When one of the ladies from church invited me to the Crumb Party the guild was having, I jumped at the chance.  Not knowing what a Crumb Party was, I was intrigued.

We met at the New River State Park and used two rooms in the Welcome Center.  About 15 ladies were there with their sewing machines and supplies.  We chose scraps of fabric from several large piles and went to work creating 6 1/2 inch squares.  There were several patterns the ladies were working on.  I tried a log cabin square and a free style square.  We were shown how to make a star from scraps, but I was completely lost and decided not to even attempt one.

My freestyle square.  It is actually square,
even though it looks crooked in the picture.

  At noon we broke for a pot-luck lunch.  There was chile, several crock-pots of soup, corn bread, pasta salad and desserts.  I brought cranberry nut bread.

I had a fun time.  The lady who manages the group's website is moving away and I was asked to take over for her, so it looks like I have gotten more than I bargained for!

Some of the completed squares.

My pile of scraps