Why I Oughta...

The folks at TrainWorld just shipped a few of my 2017 Christmas Catalog pre-orders including this one:  the 2017 Santa and Snowman Tag Boxcar.  The box is not a normal O Gauge train box from Lionel, but a two piece top/bottom orange box.  The front of it only reveals the blue boxcar.  But once you open it up? You see this: That's the boxcar with the platform on top, Santa, Frosty and the 'bridge' that you put up for the boxcar to pass under. Here's the side of the box with all the product details.  I haven't set up our track yet, nor can I find this year's model being run on YouTube, but I *did* find this older version that gives you a sense for how it works.  Kinda cute, right?

Have you had these pretzels yet?  They're a fast-emerging ' favorite thing ' of mine this Holiday season that I'm certain will make this year's list .  And, unfortunately, they quickly disappeared once they arrived in our pantry.  The peppermint and almond one?  Awesome.  The sprinkles one?  Fine, but always the last tray to empty.  I've mentioned to Natalie like four times that the 'next time you go to TJ's, can you buy more of these ???', but it appears that they might be sold out already because our rations haven't been restocked.  Or perhaps it was the fact that I/we devoured these in four days that she's purposely not rebuying?

Caught this moon showing up strong just as the sun was setting on a walk to the train one evening.  Nat alerted me to the moon based on her view in the suburbs and sure enough, framed right down the valley of high rises and above the Gehry pavilion:  there she is!  Lots of buzz around the Christkindl market and theatre crowds arriving for early dinners, but it was still worth stopping and enjoying. 

Now entering #21 in the [Coaster Collection] here on the blog.  This one from The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.  Which...is a delightful place.  Turns out, it is owned by the same folks who own Heaven errr...Sea Island .    That explains a lot .  I have a few photos of my stay (which was entirely too short) that I'll post up here on the blog with more details at some point. The most recent coaster prior to this one was Abracadabar down on the Disney Boardwalk . You can find the full coaster collection here .

That's a shot of Nat and I on the Tower of Terror down in Orlando at Walt Disney World.  It was taken at mile 10 of the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon.  And it was the first time that I had ever been on the ride.   Under normal circumstances, I would have been able to fend off the pressure from Nat to ride on something like this, but perhaps it was the half-marathon brain fog that weakened me and dropped my defenses.  I pity the person who had to sit in my seat after we left.  I was soaked at this point from the humidity and my back was starting to seize up.  I left a pool of sweat behind, I'm sure.  You can also see the other people to Nat's right that were running the race, too.  The dude looks like he's reading his phone, though?  Total pro move, I guess?

One morning in the past few weeks, I witnessed this weird event:  a tree in the front yard was shedding all of it's leaves at once.  Check out what seems like a shower of leaves falling.  One right after the other.  You can see from the pattern on the ground that this tree was dropping them all in a matter of minutes while the other trees still are holding on to theirs.  You can also notice that there's frost on the roof across the street from us and I *think* that this might have been the first frost?  Could that have set off this reaction? 

Via the Kansas City Star:   ...But “Dilly Dilly” wasn’t a pure stroke of genius out of thin air. According to dictionary.com, the origins of “dilly” are in a shortening of the word “delightful” or “delicious,” probably from the 1930s. On its own, it has come to mean “something or someone regarded as remarkable or unusual.” File this one away next to the "It's Wednesday, Gary."  "I know that Janet" one  as gold.