Christmas in Memphis

We did a number of Christmas activities here in Memphis this year.

We went to Starry Nights at Shelby Farm, which is a drive through lights display at a huge park with millions of lights. It also had a village in the middle of it where we stopped and got hot chocolate and looked at the pony rides and camel rides, and there were bonfires, and Santa, etc.

We also went to Zoo Lights, where we walked around the zoo looking at lots of lights. And we saw reindeer.

Stian went on his first Ferris wheel ride. He was nervous, but he liked it (me too, for that matter).

He got mad at us because we wouldn't let him go ice skating.

And Silje enjoyed the lights (and the Ferris wheel).

We also went to an amazing Sankta Lucia party at our neighbor's house. I don't have any pictures of that, but it was beautiful. Our neighbor is from Sweden and is a voice teacher. She has an amazing voice. Every year she hosts a Sankta Lucia party where by candlelight she and a few other women and some children, carrying candles (and one child wearing a wreath of electronic candles on her head) sing beautiful Swedish Christmas carols. They also lead the group in English Christmas carols. It was so beautiful and neat.

And we went downtown to the Peabody Hotel. We had been there this summer to see the ducks, and we wanted to go back to sit in the lobby and enjoy all the fancy decorations and drink hot chocolate. We inadvertently timed it such that we got there shortly before the ducks came down the elevator and across the lobby to their fountain. So we sat and watched that to.

Then we enjoyed the lobby and our hot chocolates/coffees.

Then Silje was standing over by the fountain all by herself while the rest of us sat our table (about 15 feet away) and this is what happened:

In case you can't understand her, she was standing by the fountain and one of the ducks splashed her. (she doesn't enunciate the "splash" very well in this video, she's normally clearer, it sounds more like "duck bash!") She got quite soaked. It wasn't just her arm, but her arm, her chest, and her other arm. It was pretty funny, though she didn't think so. She cried, poor thing. We comforted her and then had her go back over and look at the ducks so she wouldn't be too traumatized by them. The rest of the day she kept saying "duck splash!" - which was the first time she had put two words together in a sentence. She still likes to talk about the duck splashing her.

Incidentally, tonight was the first time I heard her put three words together in a sentence: "Mommy do it".

We had a nice holiday season here in Memphis, and then we went up north and had a nice holiday up in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but it'll likely take me a few days to sort through those pictures and post something.