Life In The Land Of Oz

We had a wonderful first Christmas together here in Kansas. It was difficult to be away from family and friends, but we very much enjoyed the rest and relaxation of the holiday.

As you can see, we finally got a Christmas tree following much discussion about whether we would get a real or artificial tree (i.e. whether the dogs would be less likely to eat a real or fake tree) and whether or not John would need to build a fence to go around the tree to keep the dogs away from it. In the end, we decided on a fake tree, but then after an entire day of shopping at countless stores we realized that artificial trees over 4 feet tall were out of our price range.


We ended up at thrift shop and found a decent looking tree for $20. Success! Disregarding the "as is" tag on it, we gleefully paid for the tree - releived and happy that our tree search had finally ended.


The entire top broke off as John carried it out of the store. We made a few trips out to the car to pick up all of the pieces and branches that had fallen off in the store and out through the snow-covered parking lot. Nothing could quench our Christmas spirit though. We had a tree to call our own!

We brought it inside and got to work setting it up. It took alot of duct tape, zip-ties, and even a tire-pressure gage used as support (not to mention John's ingenuity) - but we finally got the tree up and looking good. We also found out that the dogs left the tree alone for the most part, so no chicken wire fence (i.e. monstrosity) was needed. Hooray!

I was like a little kid this year, anticipating Christmas. I starting begging John 3 days before Christmas to let me start opening presents. (He said no.)









Right: The loot from our stockings. We got all sorts of toys - silly putting, air horn, whoopie cushion, silly straws...we are such kids.

With John finished with finals and officially on break, we wanted to take some time to do things that we don't normally get a chance to do (e.g. explore Kansas, go out to dinner, and just hang out.) We heard about a small town called "Little Sweden," or Lindsborg, which is about 2 hours away from us. I read that they were supposed to be having a Christmas event from 2-8pm on Saturday, so we decided to take a day trip to this little Swedish town.

We arrived in Lindsborg a little before 2, so we walked around the town (despite the bitter cold!) and visited the all of the shops. Only about half of the stores were open, but they all had signs in their windows advertising the day's events of caroling, shows on an outdoor stage, free hot cider and cookies, and tram tours of the Christmas lights. After being in town for a few hours and not seeing any Christmas activity, we were seriously beginning to wonder what was going on. John was ready to leave and were were both miserablely cold, but we went to get some food with hopes that things had just been delayed.

We ate at a little sandwich shop where John had a "Swedish reuben" - turkey, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and lingonberries. I had yummy Swedish pancakes, which are really much more like crepes. After lingering over a dessert of cookies and hot chocolate, we went back outside to find that still nothing was going on in the town!

I was determined that since we had driven two hours, we were at least going to wait for the free cookies and cider (even though I had just eaten my fill of purchased cookies and hot chocolate.) I convinced John to hold out a little bit longer by going into "Old Stuga" - the local bar. John made me promise that if nothing had started by the time we left Old Stuga, that we would give up and drive home. At about 6:30pm, we went back outside and walked up and down mainstreet - still nothing. It was like they had cancelled Christmas! No cookies, no hot cider, no caroling, no dancing....nothing! We did see the tram parked along the street - but it was empty with no driver.

John could tell how sad I was when we got back in the car, so he decided to drive around town and at least find the Christmas lights for ourselves. We drove around the whole town and....no Christmas lights!

Our day was redeemed a bit when we stopped at a "Christmas house" on the way home. There's a house right outside of Wamego that does a Christmas light show every night for a few weeks before Christmas. We pulled into their driveway where they had signs telling us to tune our radio station to a certain channel. All of their Christmas lights are set to music! It was amazing. The show lasts about 10 minutes and consists of 3 different Christmas songs. Seriously incredible.

One of the paintings on a building around town.























John with one of the many Dala horses around town.




































Old Stuga - we did get a pretty cool T-shirt here as a souvenier of our trip.

We had our first real snow here in Wamego. It snowed for two days; we got about 8 or 9 inches of snow total (even though "they" were calling for more). We mostly stayed indoors and tried to stay warm, since last night it was -15 with the windchill!

For anyone looking for some good beer to try....we found some. We bought a sampler pack - I beleive it was called the "Folly Pack" - which included Fat Tire, Mothership Wit (an organic beer), 1554, and Trippel. Amazingly, all four were excellent. It was some of the best beer we've tasted in quite a while.

While Leah was very excited to try an organic beer, the 1554 was our favorite, hands-down. To describe it, 1554 is a Dark/Light beer. It's definitely a dark beer, but yet it's light? Honestly, I'm not sure how to describe it. Here's the description from the New Belgium website:

1554 Enlightened Black Ale uses a light lager yeast strain and dark chocolaty malts to redefine what dark beer can be. It has all the malty complexity of a dark beer, with that light bodied crispness of an easy drinking session beer.

See, they did a much better job at describing it than I could have. The beer is made in Colorado, and New Belgium looks like a pretty cool company too. Check out their website:

http://www.newbelgium.com/

-John and Leah

Erica asked what fall in Kansas looks like (fall in England sounds lovely Erica!), so we thought we would share a few autumn photos of Wamego. These were all taken within a short walking distance from our front porch.

We were very happy and relieved to actaully have an autumn....for a while it was looking like we were going straight into winter!

-Leah

Freshly cut green grass - this was taken when it was still warm out.

Instead of replacing it with another gas mower, we decided to get one of the old fashioned kind - no gas or electricity required. It's eco-friendly, quiet, and less expensive. And plus, we ordered it online...with free shipping! How could I resist? Having a lawn mower delivered to our door in a cardboard box seemed so cool and novel.

I do really like the new lawn mower. But I like it best when John uses it. I didn't realize how much work mowing the lawn would be! whew! It's definitely only good for people with a small yard, since it requires going over each section about 4 times (you have to cut the grass from all angles.)

Now that it is fall and our yard is covered with leaves, I'm wondering how we...and when I say we, I mean John...is going to cut our grass/crabgrass with this manual lawn mower.

Oh, who will notice the long grass if the yard is covered with leaves anyway?
We'll just worry about it next spring.

-Leah

I know that October 10th is a little early for snow flurries and a high daily temperature of 34 degrees. It's going to be a very long winter I'm afraid.

Yes, you read the title correctly; in Wamego, Kansas, Octoberfest has been changed to a completely different festival called OZtoberfest! This is, after all, "The Land of Oz."

We decided that we had to see what this was all about. Honestly, we didn't have much of a choice. Wamego's mainstreet was completely closed down for the entire weekend. There were vendors, food, free hot air balloon rides, train rides around town, a car show, and multiple performances of the Wizard of Oz at the Columbian Theatre.

But the biggest draw was the Munchkins - more specifically, four of the original munchkins from the Wizard of Oz. They had a red carpet entrance on Friday, cameo appearances in the theatre shows, and signed autographs. People were lined up down the entire mainstreet waiting to get autographs from the munchkins. They actually had to turn people away! It was quite a site to see. (It is interesting to note here that the munchkins are now in their late 80's and only 6 are still around....And 4 of them flew into Wamego for Oztoberfest.)

Look closely - it's the Wicked Witch of the West! (in front of Toto's Tacos, a Mexican restaurant in town)

John thought this car was really cool. Notice the bathroom faucet mounted on the front.--->