A Little House Weekend: Day One

Last weekend I hosted a costumed weekend-long event with a Little House In The Big Woods theme. I had been planning this event for about 18 months. That is quite a while, I know! But we wanted to get a date settled for anyone who wanted to travel in from out of town to participate.

Since I knew some folks would be traveling, I planned an entire 3-day weekend of fun to make it worth their while!

On Friday, Sabrina and Rebecca flew in from Winnipeg and Seattle, respectively, and we all dressed up for a luncheon at W. A. Frost on Selby Ave. in St. Paul.

Here I am looking goofy as usual. I was just so excited! I am wearing my new plum wool gown, which I hope to give its own post later.

Patti joined us for lunch.

And so did Sarah and baby.

They still had christmas stuff up, including this beautiful tree. I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

After a delicious lunch, three of us headed a few blocks down to the James J. Hill House, our local schmancy-pants mansion. 

I purposely ran ahead of Sabrina and Rebecca just so I could snap this picture from the front door carriage step, with the St. Paul Cathedral in the background.

We spent a little while running around taking photos of each other, inside the house and out, before our tour.

The house is wonderfully restored throughout the majority of the rooms. We had an extensive tour. Our guide was very knowledgeable and tons of fun! We didn't all take pictures of every room, or even most of them, there were just too many! But here are some highlights.

This giant organ is definitely an attractive feature.

Here is the main hall. The main entrance is to the right. That double staircase to the left leads up to. . .

This awesome landing!

From where we are standing you can see the beautiful stained glass windows. This is just a few of them.

A photo of Mrs. Hill.

Some knitted lace. I wish I had asked if this was an original item and if we knew who knitted it! It looks like one of the many lace edgings seen here at this website of vintage patterns.

This glass area above the art gallery let in lots of lovely natural light.

The formal dining room was covered with intricately carved woodwork and had an actual gold ceiling and tooled leather on the walls.

This ended up getting so long I am going to split my weekend posts into a few parts. Saturday is up next!

See also: A Little House Weekend: Day Two and A Little House Weekend: Day Three