Last Glimpse of 2015

Something about the end of the year puts you in the mood to finish up projects. For us here at the Castle, some of those projects have been a year coming. We did get a lot of outdoor items checked off our list in the past month, but one thing we really didn't expect to do, or weren't focusing on, was indoors. And that's what you'll see below, along with a brief interruption of a visit to Frankenmuth.

 Our family room floor! When we moved into the Castle (exactly a year ago on New Years Eve) the living room and family room were covered in a rather dirty carpeting. We took the plunge right then and there and ripped up the Living room carpet in the middle of moving, but the stairway and family room were put on the back burner, and well, it stayed there simmering away all year long... 

Till the last week of the year, when Dad suddenly began tearing the carpeting off the steps. We painted them to match the upper ones, and then he and Josiah tore into the lower floor. Of course since we really didn't want to (or couldn't) move all the furniture from down there (read one very very long couch, a piano, an entertainment center, multiple chairs.. etc.) they did the flooring in parts. By New Years Eve, they had half of it accomplished. But that morning we decided to all take a break and I took the family to Frankenmuth. Somewhere I had been introduced to it for the first time this year! Yes, believe it or not, most of us had never been there before. Mom and Dad had of course, and possibly the oldest girls.. but not that we remembered.

I was kind of assuming we would wander the shops around the river place, in and out of all the charming little shops, more window shopping and enjoying ourselves than anything else, but I was wrong.

This, is the first shop I took the family into... "Charlin's Book Nook," a little used book store. And that is where we stayed for quite some time. 

As Faith said "Well, you took US into a used BOOK store.. what else did you expect?" True enough.. :) 

 And despite Mother's chagrin (she can't find places for all the books we already have) we came home with a half dozen or so more! (along with the promise, to sort through the books at home and pass some on) When we finally left the book shop, we did pop in and out of a few different shops, but soon our stomachs found us at "Le Crepe du Jour" an absolutely wonderful Crepe shop there. That, concluded our little field trip of sort, and we headed home ready to finish up 2015. 

 Josiah and Dad worked hard to finish up the wood flooring, while we ladies worked on our traditional fancy last dinner of the year, which I will give you a glimpse of next. 

~Chs