Florida Library!

While on vacation, why not visit a library? On our vacation in Fort Pierce, Florida we visited the downtown Fort Pierce Library branch. What a friendly staff and fun library! This library had a nice collection of books by local authors and a great children's section. Our favorite was the upstairs reading area with a view of the ocean! Great visit. If we get back to Fort Pierce next year, we will return.

Library #24 and #25 The Reinsteins, Anna and Julia

It ended up being a very snowy day when we visited these two Cheektowaga branches. Both have the name of Reinstien, Anna and Julia. We visited the Anna Reinstein Library first. Right on Harlem Road next to Cheektowaga Town Park, this library was very busy. The library had a great children's section, and excellent dvd selection. It also had a nice extra room for quiet reading that housed the magazines and newspapers.

We then went to Steglemeir Park to feed the nuthatches and squirrels. When Anna was little, we used to live near the park and would take lots of long nature walks there. If you are patient and still, the nuthatches will hop down and eat peanuts right out of your hand! But the snow was coming down so hard that there were no nuthatches to be seen. We were the only ones in the park to enjoy the big, fluffy snowflakes. It was quiet and cold.

The Julia Reinstein Library was a cool octagonal shaped library. It was also busy on this snowy afternoon. We read and searched around for almost an hour. This library is an easy place to relax and lose track of time. It was comfortable. On the way home, we stopped at Duff's and had some great wings. We saw the newspapers clippings and photos from when President Obama came to visit last fall. Another great adventure!

Library #23 Elma Library

We arrived at the Elma Library after a few hours of sledding at Elma Meadows County Park. This was a blast! The hills were separated into 5 and under, 5 to 8 year olds, and then larger hills for everyone else. There was also a special hill for snowboarders. There were plastic toboggans and snowtubes flying everywhere! The girls had a great time. When we needed to warm up, we went inside the lodge and sipped hot chocolate by the huge fireplace.
The library was great. The staff librarians were friendly and proud of their library. We saw a new community room, still fresh with the smell of paint and almost ready for programing to begin in there in a few weeks. The end of the library featured a very old tree living inside a tall skylight type window. We found lots of books to keep us busy over the rest of the holiday vacation and long car rides coming up.

Library #22 Marilla Free Library

On a cold winter's day we visited two libraries: Marilla and Elma (described in our next post). Just down Transit Road to Bullis, Marilla has the feel of a rural community, only minutes from our city. We were happy to arrive at this cozy library, with built in furniture and warm paneling on such a cold day. The friendly staff pointed out that the library began by a couple that had a book club requiring members to purchase a book that would later be lent out, thus beginning the library concept for Marilla over 100 years ago. The library has a placque commemorating its being built during the Depression Era, by the Emergency Relief Agency in 1936.

After our library visit we walked down to the four corners to the very quaint Marilla Country Store. It felt a lot like Viddler's in East Aurora- they had a little bit of everything. There was a small museum upstairs with different antiques from the town.

Then we went sledding at Elma Meadows and visited the Elma Library.

(sorry for the lack of photos, we currently cannot find our camera after this trip!)

Library #21 Lackawanna

The Lacakawanna Public Library is a great library! Opened in 1922, it is the last Carnegie Library approved by Carnegie himself. Inside this beautiful building are several rooms all spread around the second floor. The rooms felt so homey because they each had a fireplace! One room even had a cafe- to enjoy your book with a coffee or hot chocolate! In the basement of the library is the Steel Museum where we found Mike, whose knowledge and enthusiasm for Buffalo's steel history is catchy. He gave us a tour of the small museum and answered all of our quesitons. He told us that the Steel Museum and the Rail Society will combine soon to open a large museum in South Buffalo, possibly as early as this Spring. We learned a lot here!
After the library visit, we headed to the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens to see the pointsettia show. It did not disappoint! It is a great place to ease the chill of a cold snowy day in Buffalo. We strolled through a Panamanian Rain Forrest, the Florida Everglades, hundreds of pointsettias, and beautiful photographs of flowers.
We made Mass at Our Lady of Victory Basillica where MaryGrace likes to (try to) count all the angels. We toured the new Father Baker Museum in the basement of this beautiful structure. The museum details the life of this extraordinary Buffalonian.
Finally we stopped at Daises, a great family restaruant kitty corner to the Bascillica. A great meal and great service. We went home tired and happy!

Library #20 Aurora Public Library

We braved the Black Friday crowds at an East Aurora landmark- Vidlers 5 & 10! This is a family tradition. We love it because the girls can do almost all of their Christmas shopping with their allowances! After a little shopping and eating ten-cent popcorn, it was time to relax at the Aurora Library. This cozy library sits right on Main Street in the village. We enjoyed the peace and quiet of the library, sitting in the children's section for a while before selecting a pile of DVDs from the very well organized video section. We had a nice chat with one of the librarians who recommended eating at the Riley Street Station, which we did, and we enjoyed it (it sits right next to the outdoor ice skating rink originally used for the Ice Bowl game). We enjoyed viewing the work of local artists on display in the library meeting room-many different subjects and mediums to see in the collection. It was a wintery day, and lots of fun.

Author Visit to Monkey See, Monkey Do... Children's Bookstore

We were recently invited to Monkey See, Monkey Do... Children's Bookstore on Main Street in Clarence by store proprietor, Kim Krug. She had read our story in The Buffalo News, contacted us, and invited the girls to meet an author visiting her store. Ms. Julie Berry, originally from Medina, now residing in New England, was in town to sign books and meet with any patrons interested in her craft and titles. Anna and MaryGrace were thrilled. They were able to ask many questions. Ms. Berry and Ms. Krug were gracious, and even presented the girls with a signed copy of The Amaranth Enchantment , one of Ms. Berry's works. What a great book store, and what a great time!