New Things To Add To The New Things List

 On December 5th, my wife and I added another New Thing done this year. We went to a glass blowing studio and each made a blown glass ornament. After the instructor dabbed a pipe into molten glass he handed it to us to roll on a table. Next he dabbed the pipe into the furnace for additional glass. We then rolled our molten glass in two different colors, of our choosing, and then we put it into another furnace to melt the glass color into the original clear glass. Boy, was that furnace hot! 2400 degrees! We then handed the pipe and glass to the instructor who rolled and shaped it into a round ball while we blew into the pipe to create the round bulb. It was a lot of fun! The glass had to cool and we picked the ornaments up the next day. We had created a one of a kind keepsake for our Christmas tree. A couple in front of us said it was their fourth year of creating a glass ornament. What a cool Christmas tradition. We already plan on going back next year. 

While waiting on our appointment time we visited a fused glass studio next door. The owners were making Ginger Bread ornament of glass. With fused glass, you decorate the piece with bits and pieces of colored glass and then fire it to melt all the glass into one piece. We got a flyer from them and plan on this being another New Things for us to try in the near future.

We had dinner at a new place in town before we went to the studio. Well, it was new to us. I think it opened in 2006, but was our first time. It was a pub called McNellie's Public House. It was an old three story building with a bar on the first and third floor with dining on each floor. We enjoyed a great dinner in a new spot. Overall, we had a great night and it helped add a lot of fun to our week of keeping grandkids and prepping for Christmas. 

Another New Thing we did recently was to hide ducks on our last cruise we took in November. I had posted about cruising ducks a few posts back. We took about 50 ducks to hide and hid about 10 a day on our 5 day cruise. I found 10 ducks with one duck having a tag from an earlier cruise out of Los Angeles. I will add a tag to it and hide it again on our next cruise. I saw one little girl looking for ducks one morning and pointed her to one of my hidden ones and to another I spotted. She was very excited as she hadn't found a duck up to that point. Hiding and finding ducks added a whole layer of fun to the cruise and I plan on doing it again on our next cruise.

Our ducks to hide!

Ducks found!

 

Have you tried glass blowing? Have you tried any New Things lately that have been a great experience?