A magical night!

Last evening did not start out good.  We were all so excited to drive to Peddler's Village, not only to see the Christmas lighting ceremony, but to see all of our friends from our travel group again.  (It seems like forever ago since we saw them!)

 . . . but nothing seemed to work out right  . . . we forgot our GPS, we got stuck in a ton of traffic, we made a wrong turn and then had to turn around, we could not find a place to park, we were late and actually missed the lighting! :(
But when we arrived at Peddler's Village,  everything and our moods immediately changed.  It was like we walked into a magical wonderland of lights.  And guess what?  Right after we parked, we saw Santa as he was walking home and he shouted out a loud "Merry Christmas" to us!!!  YAY!!!!  Our moods lightened immediately!

The best part of the evening was getting to see and talk to everyone in our travel group again.  I count my blessings every time we get together with them because we couldn't have met nicer or more caring group of people, ever!

I didn't get the best photos, but the memories and thoughts are there.  Here are some to share:

Peddler's Village was decorated to the nines for their "Grand Illuminations" Festival.  If you want to learn more about Peddler's Village, you can visit their website here!

Here are some of the sights we saw . . .

We thought we would never find our friends because it was PACKED with people! But as Christmas magic would have it, we ran right into them as we were trying to make our way to the coffee shop.

We walked by a toy store, which to me, is the epitome of Christmas.

Here is Anne outside the toy store admiring one of their stuffed giraffes:

The Nativity Scene was beautiful:

As we walked back to the coffee shop to warm up, we passed through the most beautifully lit tunnel!

The coffee shop was warm and inviting, but very crowded!  Here are our kids having a BLAST playing with each other!

And my favorite moment of the night - John and Anne walking arm in arm . . . back to the car.

Awwww - I love them so much!!

There is nothing like a little Christmas cheer!

I am sending a great big thank you to Kim for organizing this impromptu get-together.  I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed seeing all of our friends and their children!

And thank YOU for stopping by my blog today.  I hope you are enjoying this beautiful weekend.  We are driving up to Penn State to pick Katie up tomorrow. . . . she is spending Thanksgiving week with us and we are all so excited!