Our Christmas traditions begin

It's that time a year again. The pumpkins are no longer out, the turkey crafts are put away and the holiday music is all over my local radio. Christmas time is officially underway. For my family, we have traditions to last throughout the season but for us the past three years, the season has started with a trip to Sesame Place in Langhorne, Pennsylvania to attend their "A Very Furry Christmas" event.

Every trip we start of with a visit to see Santa. We like to do that first to avoid the longer lines later in the day. In the past, Sesame Place utilized one of their poolside buildings to house Santa's Workshop. This year, although its in the same building, the Workshop is no longer there. As they have a private room behind closed doors for your visit with santa. This is much more private and a more enjoyable experience then in the past. If you have ever seen Santa at Macy's in New York City, its very much like that, just with out the 3 hour wait.

Many of the rides are open as well as many holiday themed shows. One of the rides we enjoy most is an electric train ride through the "twiddle bugs cookie factory". This year, however it was relocated to another area. This area seems to accommodate for a longer ride as the previous location is now used as a character meet and greet.

Every time we visit "A Very Furry Christmas" we attempt to get the same location to photograph the kids and hope to get at least one good photo to use for our Christmas card we mail out to our family and friends. The kids love the sleigh right outside Santa's workshop which makes taking the photo a bit easier on their mother and I.

So with that, here is the latest edition to the blog. Hope you enjoy it!

Christmas Time Is Here... At our local Zoo!

Every year, our local zoo, The Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, NJ decorates the for Christmas. They put up lights all around the fencing, add some additional light sculptures through the park and of course have special guest. Admission is free, however they ask that you bring some food for the needy. This is the first year my family and I ventured out to this event even though we have been to the zoo many times before in the summers. We packed up a bag a food, got the three kids ready, grabbed my camera bag and headed out the door. We left our house around 4:30 for a 5:00 PM opening. Traffic was horrendous and not just for this opening, but just general Jersey traffic. I tried to navigate around it with Google Maps but they just put be back the same road I was already on, so we just had to push our way through the traffic. Once we got to the main road the zoo is on, it was smooth sailing and arrive shortly after 5. To our surprise, it was a rather low attendance based on what we have heard. We we go there and made our way through the entrance we saw our local news team (CBS 2-New York) getting ready to film a news story with the local weather man. We made our way around the collective group of folks looking to get on TV. That was not our goal so we just snuck around and made our way through the park. I was surprised to see most of the animal still out as it was rather chilly. There where the alpaca's, a kangaroo, penguins of course and the barn was open to walk through to see the horse, pig and chickens. Along the way was came across the Monkey's, although they were not out, the entrance was lit up with Christmas lights. This is where our photo today comes from. I really like the way it came out, but of course i wanted to enhance it a bit.

Hope you like it!

Gotta Catch'em All!

My family and I gathered this weekend for my son's 5th birthday. He theme this year was Pokémon. His favorite character is Squirtle. We spend about 20 minutes at a boardwalk game this year trying to "win up" to the level the Squirtle he wanted. He was so happy that day. With Pokémon Go being such a hit, an influx of Pokémon toys have hit our local stores. He was unable to find a Squirtle toy he wanted, but found a Pokéball with a Pikachu figure. When the time came to help decorate for his party, he ran to his room and got some of his Pokémon toys decorate with. One he chose was the Pokéball with Pikachu. He had fun setting him up in different "catch" positions. He asked me to take a picture of his "decoration". This was one of my favorite pictures he set up!

Enjoy!