A Bustling December

With Thanksgiving over, the holiday season kicked off the following weekend with Colonial Williamsburg’s Grand Illumination. Apparently, the Grand Illumination is a big deal in town, with CW lighting all of their Christmas lights, lots of Christmas carols and activities all evening, and a giant fireworks show. Never having been, a group of us went and shuffled through the throngs of people and evangelicals until we found a spot by the Governor’s Palace to watch one of three identical fireworks displays (the other two were over two other parts of CW). The fireworks were excellent, but I didn’t really feel the grandeur of the Grand Illumination. Nevertheless, we wandered a bit, found some hot cider, and made our way through town to head to Mark’s house for football and food. It was a fun evening and continued my attempts to get myself into the Christmas mood without the cold weather or the snow. (photo: Grand Illumination fireworks.)

The following Friday, the Foundation had its staff holiday party at the Hospitality House in Williamsburg. I’d heard many a story about past holiday parties and expected a ridiculous but fun party with all sorts of Jamestown staff. After the debate about what to wear (Just how fancy to dress? Would I be the only female in pants? Ah, the agony…), Sally, Jamie, and I headed downtown. It was fun to see staff that I hadn’t seen in a while, especially in a non-work setting, as well as to meet a lot of the Outreach staff that I’d be working with starting in January (I’d interviewed and accepted a position as a full-time Outreach Education Instructor in the Outreach department with the foundation). The party turned out to be quite fun and we did a fair amount of dancing (no, not the embarrassing Christmas party kind). After it was all over, we went to Jeff’s house to hang out for a while with many of the Outreach staff, among others. Some people were acting a bit ridiculous, but the evening was a ton of fun and I was a bit tired the next day. (photos: Scott showing off his mad fashion at the staff party; Ashley and me; Todd and the Hulicks; Sally, Sam, and Jaimie; and people getting their dance on.)





(photos: Callie, Sally, and Jamie the rock star; and Jeff doing what he does.)


Sally and I had also been doing quite a bit of holiday-related things. I’d been trying to get in the Christmas mood for a while, without overwhelming success. Sally and I found a Charlie Brown-esque faux-tree, watched a fair amount of holiday movies, listened to all the Christmas music, etc., but without the snow, it was hard to get in the mindset. She’d been questing for the perfect Christmas cookie and made quite a few batches to both eat at our house as well as to take to her staff at Yorktown. I’d been doing some shopping, but one day we both rode our bikes to Jamestown Settlement, and then again to Historic Jamestowne, for some shopping and nearly collapsed after our cold and windy 10-mile ride. At work, there were also the college student interpreters that were back and agreed to play some pranks on coworkers, causing more than a few hijinks (one of which resulted in me being kidnapped by the English and carried off to their fort). I also had a brief visit to Michigan for a couple of days, during which I got to see a TON of snow! However, I had a lot on my plate in the run up to Christmas and was very relieved when it came time to go home for Christmas and have a week off. (photos: Our very geometric Christmas tree; Jack as Snidley Whiplash at our last Honor Guard gig; me very excited to be in Michigan in the snow; in front of the Straits; and my mom in front of the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse.)





(photos: Eating a pasty!; reason I love Northern Michigan #52: giant beef jerky; delicious cheese curds; downtown Detroit from the air; and Mike and Christine's Star Wars/Star Trek holiday garland at their Christmas party.)

Last Days of the Gypsies

After the festivals in Urbanna and Charles City County, the gypsies had their final festival with the Godspeed visiting New Kent County for a couple of days. The first day was just for school kids and an event in the afternoon for seniors only. We had a ton of kids of various ages, and through a bit of disorganization, the day went well. The festival itself was a collection of people from all over the county with booths on crafts, archaeology, alpacas, taxidermy, agriculture, history, music, and even animal skinning (my favorite). I made friends with the little old man that was apparently an award-winning skinner and hide-tanner. His display was right next to our tent, so we were able to really enjoy the shock-value squeals of the kids next to us as Charles skinned a beaver and gave the feet and teeth to the kids. It was particularly fun since he also gave me a couple of tails and a foot to take back and use at Jamestown. (photos: Paddock Lane and the pop of marvelous foliage that we had all given up on this fall due to the drought and late season heat; the back of our house and some color; alpacas in New Kent County, including one that seems to be pretty hungry; me in an alpaca hat to go with my other cold weather gear; and me with some of the taxidermy temporarily stored in our tent.)





After work, we went back to Williamsburg where I quickly cleaned and got ready to head to Hampton. I’d been wanting to go to a monster truck rally for a while (since I’d never been to one before), and having seen the commercials on television, had gotten a group of people to go to the Monster Jam show that evening. Heather, after having recently moved to Connecticut, came out to play since she was in the area for the day. Everyone finally got to the Hampton Coliseum, none of us having ever been to a monster truck show. It was an interesting crowd that seemed to have its own kind of silly culture, but I loved it! It was an event that I enjoyed immensely, though I’m still not sure why. After Monster Jam, we all headed to a pub in downtown Hampton to hang out and apparently have a table hockey tournament until it was time for us all to go home (since most of us had to work the next day, anyway…). (photos: Grave Digger and another truck crushing some cars; Scott, Lindsay, and David at the rally -- David being particularly excited, of course; some of the motocross at Monster Jam, really one of the coolest parts of the entire experience; and fans cheering like they mean it for Grave Digger, the superstar of monster trucks. Videos on my YouTube page, linked on the right side of my blog.)




The second day was quite busy (and I a bit tired), though I was able to periodically check the UM-OSU football score throughout the day. The ship had to leave early since the President was coming to one of the plantations in the area in commemoration of the First Thanksgiving (in 1619 in Virginia, not the 1620 one in Massachusetts). After chatting all day long with visitors, the Honor Guard regrouped to have one last beverage and one last group dinner at the local (and delicious!) Italian restaurant on site. (photos: Me waiting for the festival to open, resting but not sleeping; the Godspeed at her docking with the cypress trees and their foliage in the background; Charles' skinned beaver; and Jack and my scarf unwinding after festival clean-up at the end of the day.)




The following few days were busy in the run-up to Thanksgiving. My dad came down to visit and spend the holiday with me, arriving that Wednesday night. I had to work on Thanksgiving as part of the big program Foods and Feasts (all of our interpretive sites cook… a lot…), so my dad followed his inspiration to drive to Virginia Beach before coming to explore Jamestown that afternoon. After work, we cleaned up before heading to the Whitehall Restaurant in Williamsburg for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner (though I’d already had one official dinner at work, along with all of the other food I’d been eating all day). (photos: Thanksgiving dinner number #1, courtesy of the Jamestown Settlement café; Kris at one of the cookfires in the Indian Village; Don mixing instead of cooking (something about fire on a wooden pier and ships); me really excited about roast duck and scalded oysters; and Terry explaining to Dawn and some visitors about something delicious he cooked.)





(photos: Me examining my turtle soup with some visitors; Mary with the head of the hog butchered in the Fort that morning; and Thanksgiving dinner #2 that evening.)



The next day the Honor Guard had to march in a parade in Reston, VA (just outside of DC), so we were up early to drive north. My dad had agreed to come with us and, along with a couple of local volunteers, swell our meager ranks for the parade. My dad hadn’t ever done costumed/interpretive work and found the costuming interesting, to say the least. I had a hard time keeping myself from giggling (as, apparently, did my grandma when she saw the photos of my dad in costume). After the parade, we drove back to Williamsburg after food and beverage stops in Richmond and went to bed early. (photos: Mike training Dad before the parade; the Honor Guard in the parade with me as ensign; and look at me wave.)



I was sick on Saturday and spent most of the day in bed until meeting my dad later in the afternoon for a bit of shopping in Merchant’s Square. That evening, he wanted to hang out with my friends and the Honor Guard at the pub. We got a fair amount of people to come hang out, though the evening continued quite late and was indeed fun. Sunday morning was spent taking my dad to the airport before coming back to Williamsburg to relax and recover from the holiday weekend.

So I'm A Jerk...

So I'm a jerk. Yup, I pretty much suck for not having updated my blog for the past ever and having been a big slacker before that. It has indeed been busy, though I've said that before and all. Anyway, in an attempt to prevent the hole I've been digging myself for the past two months, I'm going to set the goal of getting this all updated by the end of the week. In the mean time, please enjoy the following snippets of my recent life and the video as included below (and recommended to me by Katie)...

Recently and currently:

• Enjoying musically: the Juno soundtrack and Buddy Holly
• Reading: The Golden Compass trilogy, Stephen Colbert book, and curatorially-approved education materials
• Eating: cheese -- and lots of it
• Watching (movie-wise): Juno, Atonement, The Darjeeling Limited, Ed Wood, and The Commitments
• Watching (TV-wise): victorious UM football bowl games, election coverage, bad tv marathons, occasional conspiracy theory History Channel-esque specials
• Doing: looking for creative things to do in off-season W'burg (e.g. bowling, long walks all over the place, voyages to the ocean, etc.), planning ridiculous yet affordable road trips, and training in the new job
• Avoiding: lethargy, energy inefficiency, spending money, and bad tv marathons