Interesting Frozen Lake Scenes

 Some interesting scenes from my lake front home this December 2012 during the Christmas holiday.The lake is definitely frozen enough this year to allow for the snowmobilers to make use of the lake and if you can see well enough, I tried to zoom out far enough to catch a picture of a lone skier walking or sliding across the lake.  That must have been quite a different afternoon "walk" for whoever it was. Due to the major drought this past summer and eventual lowering of our lake to kill off the fish by the DNR, our individual "beaches" have a much different look this winter.  Notice the stranded boat lift which would have normally been taken out of the lake but since it was already marooned on a shore, the owners just left it out this winter!! Underneath that ridge area seen bordering the beach area are dozens of dead fish. Nice new fish will be put back into the lake come spring -  whenever that will happen in 2013!!

Christmas scenes

Showing off my special Nativity scene this year as it has a new plant with it - a plant and unique vase that I purchased while shopping in Santa Fe, New Mexico this past fall. In case any visitors to this blog site haven't notice, I like southwest decor and scenery! The adobe Christmas village above my fireplace has been "in the family" since I was actually living in the southwest. Each adobe home has a light inside it although one of them no longer works.

May everyone have a Merry Christmas----- remembering that  there wouldn't even be a Christmas holiday without the birth of Christ!

 

Mrs. Claus visits the library

The library had a very special visitor earlier this month from Mrs. Santa Claus.  She was dropped off by her elves so she could read some stories to the children.  She also provided gingerbread cookies for everyone as one of her stories was about the Gingerbread Baby.  Over 20 young children attended the visit along with a few parents. Children were then seated in a circle on the floor to make beaded candy canes they could take home.  The weather cooperated well and Mrs. Claus was able to travel on to visit another group of children.

The town was also having its annual Christmas events this afternoon which included Santa himself being present.  Lots of Christmas goodies were on sale and the annual candle light walk down main street was held. The busy day concluded with Bingo lovers enjoying fun and fellowship at the local Legion Hall.

Decorating the library tree

Scenes of "after school hour" children decorating their own Christmas tree at the library. The library has a bigger tree in the main lounge area that is decorated by an adult volunteer,  but the children have their own tree in the room used for our many special events. Each child was asked to bring one of their own tree decorations to hang. They were then able to make use of candy canes and an assortment of other decorations. The pictures hanging on the tree are from this summer's reading program. With both Christmas and New Year's falling on Tuesdays this year, the library closes early on the Monday's before each holiday.  That means NO "after school hour" on those Mondays this year.  A special visitor is coming soon though so watch for news about that soon!

New Youth "Nook"

We now have a new area in the library that I'm calling our "Youth Nook".  It provides a somewhat private area for our older children to call their own space. The area includes all the fiction as well as non-fiction books for what Dewey calls "juvenile" as well as fiction books classified as "young adult". We actually receive several new books in the "young adult" section every month as we have a standing order for this age group. Right now the table is decked out for the Christmas season. There are two softer chairs in the area which is an extension of the children's area.  This allows for more room when necessary for whenever we have a lot of younger children. My "dream" is to eventually have more youthful looking furniture in the area but for now we're using what is already available.

This area has already been used quite favorably by some adult groups! Just shows that adults are often "young at heart"!