Christmas all over again

Hi.  Abby here...Mom's making me post.

Another Christmas has come and gone.  We went on our annual Christmas Eve sleigh ride up in Midway and had a great time.  Our driver could do a really good Donald Duck impersonation.  :)

For Christmas, Santa gave us a trip to DISNEYLAND!  We're going in February.  I'm super excited, Disneyland is basically my favorite place ever.  And Dad got a Kindle.  Cool cool.

We also saw The Hobbit.  I went with Dad at midnight when it came out, and I went again with Mom during the break.  It was so good!  It was visually gorgeous and the guy who played Bilbo was awesome.  We loved it.

I also saw the new Les Mis movie with my friends.  Again, visually it was a beautiful movie to watch.  Overall I thought it was so well done and the actors they picked to play the characters were great.  On the musical side of things...the actors were all really talented, but some of them were more talented in their acting than they were in their singing, in my opinion.  When Valjean sang "Bring Him Home" I didn't get the buzz that I normally get when hearing that song sung by someone else.  (I was probably picky since we had just gone to the Alfie Boe concert, see previous post)  The girl who played Eponine was fabulous though, I loved her voice.  She was probably my favorite.  And Marius and Cosette were pretty good too.  Mostly it was just Bring Him Home that was a bit of a letdown.  But overall, I really did like it.  Worth seeing for sure.

This weekend Mom and I were in Denver.  The reason we went was to see a Vincent Van Gogh exhibit at the Denver Art Museum with my grandparents.  It was a fabulous exhibit.  The art geek side of me was in heaven surrounded by all these paintings that Van Gogh himself had done.  Seeing them in person is nothing compared to seeing them in a book.  We both discovered some new favorite paintings of his.  The exhibit was also really educational and we learned a ton.  One cool thing was that Van Gogh kept a journal, and throughout the exhibit there were lots of little quotes from him. 

"One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music."

"I'm an artist...those words naturally imply always seeking without ever truly finding."

"How much there is in art that is beautiful, if only one can remember what one has seen, one is never empty or truly lonely, and never alone."

We also had fun playing in Denver and eating yummy food.  We had a great time.  And I got some cute shoes too, which is always a plus.

ALSO, last Sunday Downton Abbey season 3 started!  This is a big deal, folks.  Mom and I are kind of addicted.  And tomorrow we'll watch episode two!  It's like Christmas all over again!  Matthew and Mary are quite adorable.  :)