This was a while ago... about a month now (the end of November) but still fun. Every year (we're only getting to know the holiday events) The Shelter (a local kids and family charity) hosts the Lawrence Festival of Trees. People decorate trees and donate them, then other people (mostly businesses) bid on them at auction, and the proceeds go to The Shelter.

There is a suggested donation for the public to come and see the trees, which we did. Our baby was probably overwhelmed (if you can't keep 'em quiet, dazzle them with crowds and flashing lights), but our four-year-old thought it was pretty fun. He especially liked the upside down tree. Next year, we hope to see the gingerbread house competition across the street, too.

Some of the trees were very gaudy, and some of them were especially clever. I took photos of the ones that caught my eye, and you can see them below. One in particular, a carousel themed tree, was very cool. The movie below is of that tree.

Enjoy!

The photos on Flickr

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7739984995174485040[/googlevideo]

My stats package for this site keeps track of what search terms people have used to find this site. So far, nothing scurrilous has crossed my shores, but three old posts have been dredged up by visitors.

1. Someone from Israel searched for "novo loudspeakers" and came up with my post on the second time I was approached in the street by someone wanting to unload some hot speakers: "Hey buddy, wanna buy some speakers?"
2. Another person was looking for "robertssnow" and found my post on Robert's Snowflake, a cool little charity that sells unique snowflake ornaments by illustrators.
3. Finally, someone was searching for "gassiest dog" and found a post from 2004 about a company (now defunct) selling a dog gas prevention product. They had a survey-produced list of the ten gassiest dog breeds, and poodles were sixth on the list.

I just thought you'd like to know.