Christmas Lights Galore! Part 2

The Duttons have been going to see the Christmas lights at Bellingrath Gardens for as long as I have been married. We went on our Annual trek to check out the Christmas lights on Saturday night. Linda (my Mom-in-Law) decided to step it up a notch by handing out these cool glasses to enhance our experience at the lights. When you have the glasses on and look at lights of any kind, you will see a seasonal image around the light. We had snowmen glasses, snowflake glasses and santa glasses. Everyone traded until they found the ones which suited them best. Here is a photo of everyone upon receipt of their glasses:

It was really fun to make the drive to Bellingrath with our glasses on...I had the Snowmen glasses and all the tail lights of the cars looked like an army of red snowmen! I think this was the most crowded I've ever seen Bellingrath for the entire time I've been attending the lights with Phillip's family. We had to park along the side of the road leading to the parking lot. After the hike to the ticket spots, we had an extremely difficult finding everyone, as we had to take three separate vehicles. Just as I found one set of family members, I'd lose them in the crowd and find another set.

After we finally got everyone together, kids to the bathroom, then all back together again, we set off to enjoy the lights. Linda's glasses added a whole new fun element to the viewing of the lights! We created quite a stir among the other visitors to Bellingrath. It was difficult to say whether folks were wondering where we got those cool glasses, or whether they were wondering why we were walking around looking like dorks. Probably the latter.

Here is Phillip sporting his santa glasses over his glasses!

And Joe...

Here's Lily:

And my Mom-in-Law and Dad-in-Law after we stopped for hot chocolate.

What good is a visit to Bellingrath without a photo of some weird flower:

Archie, Lily and I took a break from walking:


Lily and Archie:

Riding the Stone Lion:

It was a fun, but exhausting evening! After Bellingrath, we all went back to my Mom & Dad-in-Laws' house for some adult beverages on the back porch. After a while, it began raining, then blowing, then blowing harder. All of a sudden, there was a very loud clatter on the roof covering the porch. It was NOT raindeer. I thought it was a bunch of hail at first, but my Dad-in-Law said for everyone to get down, because a tree was coming down. As I ducked down under the patio table, all I could think of was that I was seeking shelter from a falling tree under a GLASS patio table! Fortunately the kids were inside playing. Or sleeping, in Ryan's case! After all the noise stopped, we checked around the side of the yard, and found this:

Fortunately, there was no damage to the house or roof. Another tree broke this one's fall before it hit the house. Some branches and stuff fell on the aluminum roofing on the porch which sounded quite scary! We resumed our festivities and had an event-free evening after that!

Right after that, the pelting rain began. We could barely hear one another as we shouted across the patio table to eachother! The storm was loud and intense, but didn't last too long. Not peaceful like a snow storm at all!