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Longwood Gardens is a fun place to visit all year long but at Christmas time it’s a totally different place. The amount of lights and flowers is astounding. They’ve really exapanded the displays since the last time I was there two years ago.
Because we were there after dark this year, there aren’t as many great photos, but there was plenty of cold weather and Christmas lights which is all it takes to make me happy apparently! Check out the photos here.
After going to the Bethlehem Chriskindlmarkt, we stopped at Koziar’s Christmas Village. It was the first time I’ve been there since I was a little kid. It’s only grown more impressive over the years. My photos don’t do it justice.
When I think of Christmas it conjures images of small towns with rows of little stores selling gifts in Germany. OK, so maybe not the Germany part. However, a really cool Christmas tradition does come from Germany. It’s the Chriskindlmarkt. Bethlehem, PA (a.k.a. Christmas City) puts on a huge one every year. I finally got a chance to go to it this year. It was a fun day of shopping and some sightseeing.
Then i heard Philadelphia was putting on one of their own at City Hall. It was called the Philadelphia Christmas Village. While not as big it will hopefully be an annual event because it has real potential.
Check out my photos from Bethlehem and then take a look at my photos of Philadelphia.
I finally found time to go on another covered bridge tour. If you haven’t seen my previous photos from the Lehigh Valley, you can check them out here. Then go check out my newest photos from the covered bridges of Berks County. I’m sure they aren’t the last ones you’ll see posted.
The photos also include some pictures of the Reading area including the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower and Pagoda.
It doesn’t seem at all possible that more than 6 months have passed since the death of my father. I’ve created memorial pages on my genealogy site for other family members, but I felt like I should make something more substantial for my Dad. What started out as a page on my family tree site has slowly evolved into emilgatti.com.
Please feel free to visit and take a look at the photos, stories, biography, etc. Then if you have anything you’d like to add about my Dad, please submit it by using the links on the site. I know that there are more stories and details to be added, but I rely on the the people who know them to share them.
Go to www.emilgatti.com for info.
I just posted some photos taken on a weekend in New Haven Connecticut. We stayed in New Haven and made side trips to Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods and Olde Mistick Village. Our room at the Omni had a spectacular view of the Yale University campus.
On the Fourth of July, we stopped at Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria for lunch. They originated New Haven style pizza. That was fun. We also tried to go to Louis Lunch, but they were closed for the holiday, so we didn’t get to taste a burger from the place that allegedly invented the hamburger.
Last month I was lucky enough to get to spend some time in the Florida panhandle. We also took a side trip to Biloxi, Mississippi with a stop in Mobile, Alabama. I’ve finally gone throught the hundreds of photos I took and put some of them online.
Some of the highlights are the beaches of Fort Walton Beach, Destin and Panama City Beach, dolphins in Destin, my cousin’s house in Shalimar, the casinos of Biloxi and much more!
You might remember that I went to a Christmas show at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster, PA at the end of last year. We went back last week to see Jack Hanna and his menagerie of wild animals. The show was fantastic. It was a lot of fun to see him in person after watching him on TV for so many years. Afterwards, we went shopping at the Tanger and Rockvale Outlets.
We had dinner at a fantastic restaurant called The Family Cupboard. I’ll mention some more about that in a future post. Maybe a little review.
The only bad part of the day is that my father couldn’t have been with us. He would have loved the show. He’s the one who taught me most everything I know about animals. Nature shows were his favorite.
I was in Newport Rhode Island on business recently. While I was there, the Newport Winter Festival was going on. It was the weather was beautiful for the two weeks that I was there. Of course, on the one day that I had free (the day I travelled home) there was an ice storm and the skies were gray at best. But I made the most of it and went out and did the tourist stuff and took a bunch of photos.
After a very difficult few months, I’m finally trying to start getting caught up with things. That includes updating my site. I just posted some photos that I took when we took my grandfather to the annual Christmas show at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster, PA. It was a christmas gift to him from my Mom & Dad.
This particular place holds a special meaning to him and me because the threatre is on the property where there once existed The Willows Motel that he and my grandmother used to take me to when I was little. The covered bridge on their property is what started my love of covered bridges.