Winter in Suburbia

Although there wasn't much snow left when we got home from Michigan on New Year's Eve, we have had some snow (and colder temperatures that let the snow stick around) for the last week or so. Last night we got about 4 inches of snow from the storm that is burying New England, though that is nothing compared to last winter. Despite the fact that we actually have to shovel this year, it only takes about 20 minutes, which I think is preferable to having to clear frost/ice/snow off of my car every morning. Here are some pictures so that you don't have to drive to PA in the winter to see what it looks like:

Here is our house around noon today when I went out to get the mail. The rest of the pictures were taken from inside the house, since it was cold out and I didn't want the neighbors to think I was spying on them (though I guess I was).

Here is the view from our laundry room over our deck and into the neighbor's yard around 8 this morning.

Looking to the right from the laundry room

The view from our bedroom across the street, where you can see the neighbors shoveling.

Across the street to the right. The plow came by shortly after 7:30, which wasn't too bad considering that our road is only one block long and probably isn't a high priority.

Around Reading: Koziar's Christmas Village

Up near Bernville, PA, which is about 15 miles northwest of Reading, is Koziar's Christmas Village. The website says it has over a half million Christmas lights. Last year we didn't know that it existed but Billie found out about it and we went there on December 4. Since you couldn't be there with us, here are some pictures. As you will see, there is something for just about everyone.

This was the view from the road. We went close to the time that it opened for the night and traffic was backed up for about a half mile. When we left the traffic waiting to get in was backed up for about four miles.

I'm not sure if this indicates belief in a young Earth or just the fact that dinosaurs liked getting presents, too.

After the dinosaurs died off, Noah gave his wife two of every animal for Christmas (and you thought there were a lot of animals in the twelve days of Christmas!).

These pandas apparently couldn't wait to start repopulating the Earth.

A while after the waters subsided, some of the animals attended the birth of this baby (I think it happened in Texas, since Texans think they are God's gift to the world).

Shortly after his birth, the baby realized that living in Texas is terribly hot and, in a fit of overreaction, decided to move to the North Pole.

I think that the baby grew up to be Santa Claus.

Santa's house is the cause of the Northern Lights.

Once a year, Santa visit's Lissa's Christmas village.

Santa also visits farms in Berks County.

Maybe the farm provides trees for Bill's side-job as a tree salesman.

If Bill is out of mistletoe, I know where you can get some.

Here is a picture of Mom in her younger days...

Maybe she was teaching about Christmas around the world.

Here is a pedal car for dad (it even says "Volunteer"!).

This is to prove we were actually there.

This one seems pretty self explanatory.

Christmas around the House

It was weeks before Christmas and outside our house, some lights and a wreath faced away from the south.

While inside the entryway there were some strings, of red and gold plastic on banisters and things.

The stockings were hung by the gas fireplace with care,

with one by the basement door in case Santa comes through there.

Some caterpillars gathered in the room without TV,

and last but not least, we put up a tree.

House Guest

Now that we have a guest room, we are able to have guests! (Technically, our first house guests were my friend Mary and her boyfriend over the summer. Unfortunately for them, they got to sleep on an air mattress in the basement.) Our friend Emily came to town last weekend for her annual visit (last year we visited her in Philadelphia when she came to town for a wedding). Here are a few pictures from her visit.

No visit to Reading is complete without a trip to the Pagoda!

Thankfully there was a guy hiking who could take our picture in front of picturesque downtown Reading.

From the Pagoda we visited Albright's campus, where Emily made friends with the school's patriarch, Jacob Albright. From the look on his face, I'm not sure he was entirely pleased with the attention.

Emily also made friends with some of the local wildlife, such as this Nittany Lion prowling the Penn State Berks campus before lunch.

Thanks for the visit, Emily. We're already planning to see you next November!

The Indiana Room

We have always planned to have a guest room in our house but after the countless hours of painting in the summer neither of us had much energy to work on it. The fact that our new bed left us with an extra one and a friend from Bloomington was planning a visit gave us the motivation we needed to follow through on our plans. While all of the redecorating took place in the past week, the room has been in the planning stages for much longer. Other than the artwork, almost everything else in the room was bought on sale over the past year or so. Here are some pictures of the newly renovated Indiana Room:

This is where you can sleep when you visit us.

Who needs overhead lights when you can have a floor lamp?

A nice view of the meeting between crimson and cream (or, in terms of Valspar paint colors, Posh Red and Cream in my Coffee)

Billie gave me this clock for Christmas years ago. It is glad to finally have a home.

Autumn in Suburbia

Most of the trees here went from green to brown without much color in between, apparently because of the dry summer. There are some trees, though, that had some color, such as this one in our front yard.


The neighbors' trees are similarly red:


While I appreciate the fall colors, I would also appreciate the leaves falling off of this tree before it gets too cold outside to rake them. Whenever they decide to give up, we have the benefit of being able to rake them into the street to be vacuumed up, which is a lot better than dragging them out to the backyard!

New Bed-ing

When Billie and I lived in Bloomington we used to say that when we had a house the first thing we were going to buy was a king-sized bed. It turns out that we were wrong. (Of course, even the furniture came after a washer, dryer, and refrigerator). Anyhow, in addition to our bed being a bit small (though Billie has gotten a lot better at not taking up 80% of it), none of our bedding matched our new purple, white, and grey color scheme, as you can see in the picture below:

Blue and purple go together in theory...

While we have been picking up king-sized bedding on sale for a while now, we were waiting for the right sale to pick up the bed itself. Last weekend was a semiannual sale at a local furniture store so we decided that the time had come. Our new bed was delivered this morning:

Our bedroom, now with coordinating bedding

Another challenge was finding a headboard that matched the dressers that Billie's parents gave her when she graduated from college. After a lot of searching and comparing a dresser door to cherry furniture that had too much red or not enough red we found this one, which is an excellent color match and is also in a similar style (Billie's dresser has vertical slats on the doors and across the top) as you can see below:

The view of our dressers (note the fall decorations on mine) from Billie's side of the bed.

Our new bed also means that we have another bedding-related issue to address: what do do with our old bed...

Rearranging the Furniture

Since we've been using hand-me-down couches since the beginning of time, Billie and I were both looking forward to having some new furniture. Getting some new furniture for the family room also allowed us to put a few things in the empty living room. Here are some pictures:

Our new recliner, couch, and pillows with the fireplace.

Another view of the recliner and couch.

The matching loveseat. The benefit of buying the same style of everything is that you don't have to worry about it matching!

Here is our old couch in its new living room location. Since we don't have new end tables, this room is still pretty bare feeling.

The old loveseat and chair in the living room. Some day we might put some more things on the walls!

We're back (though we never really left)

Given that our second to last post was on April 4, you may have been surprised by yesterday's Halloween post. If you aren't friends with us on Facebook then you may not know that we bought a house on April 23 and spent most of May, June, and July making some cosmetic changes.

At the end of August we went to Hawaii with Dad and Bonita, Lorien and Dave, and Jessica and Mike. The fall semester started at Albright the day after we got back and we've both been busy with work since then, though we did find some time to attend a few football games, clean up the yard, and rally to restore sanity, which we hope to share some pictures of in the coming weeks.

We are still making changes to the house. We recently bought some new furniture for the living room and we're hoping to have the guest room operational soon. Regardless, we've got lots of space so stop by if you're ever in the area (or looking for an excuse to be in the area - we're still an hour from Philadelphia, two hours from New York, and two and a half hours from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. I hear there are some casinos somewhere, too.)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Here is a picture of this year's pumpkins: