Festival of Trees

December 11th was Indiana's 199th birthday, which meant that the Indiana Historical Society was free, which meant that Tess and I were going because I love museums and I love free even more. Plus, they have the festival of trees every year and I've always wanted to go.

We started the trip with a short stop at Costco for lunch and shopping. Because we love Costco. Tess was excited to eat under one of the umbrellas. And let's talk hot dogs for a minute: Costco hot dogs are SO MUCH BETTER than Sam's Club hot dogs. I mean, the ones at Sam's are alright. And they make for a cheap lunch. But Costco's are SO YUMMY. So there you go.

I thought the festival of trees would just be a big room full of different trees, but all 50 of them were sprinkled throughout the building. I would've liked to have looked at all of the museum stuff as well, but Tess wasn't interested, and I wasn't interested in her causing a scene because she was bored. So we looked at each of the trees and I got to see a little bit of the exhibits, but not as much as I would have liked. I'll have to go back some time, because it all looked really interesting!

Here's the "Back Home Again in Indiana" tree. It was my favorite - so pretty!

A nice lady offered to take a picture of us in front of the "A Christmas Story" living room recreation. Lovely, Tess.

Hippo in a wig ornament? Yes, please.

And hamburger ornament? Check.

I liked the pasta hanging from this tree. It was sponsored by some Italian restaurant. I liked the red spatulas, too!

This plaque was on the floor of the ballroom. Yep, Hoosiers.

 The France tree - the little Eiffel towers were especially pretty.

The fancy L.S. Ayres tree. (Ayres was a fancy department store in Indy back in the day.)

And of course there was a Star Wars tree!

I need need need a Death Star tree topper!

Lego sets under the tree...

...figures all throughout for the ornaments.

A clever book tree. (I thought of all the librarians in my life when I saw this!)

I really liked the top of this Grinch tree.

So there's this ballroom and the ceiling goes up 4 stories and it was just really really pretty.

There was a small display on the origins of the word "Hoosier".

I really liked the colors on this Clabber Girl tree.

The upside down tree was fun, although it kinda freaked Tess out - she was sure it was gonna fall on her!

Of course there was a Speedway tree!

And I thought the sign for this prohibition tree was clever: "It used to be illegal to be "too" merry."

We finished looking at all of the trees and decided to go for a little walk along the canal. It was such a pleasant day - we didn't even need coats!

I wanted to take a nice picture with Tess, but of course she had other plans.

It was a really fun way to spend some time with my best girl!