Sunday, January 29, 2012

29 January 2012 - Swim and sleep

January is a busy swimming season.  The girls had two meets in early December, but January is the thick part of the season.  Three out of four Saturdays this month have been occupied with swimming.  The one that wasn't was a youth temple trip to Columbus.  The girls are all doing great in their events and improving their times.  Here's Jessica swimming her leg of the 4x100 freestyle relay.  She jumps in the water at about the 12 second mark.  Cheering provided by Emily.

The girls have been practicing two days a week and swimming at least four events each (usually five) on Saturdays.  That can really wear you out.  But at least they still love each other.

22 January 2012 - New Truck!

OK, so the picture's way darker than it should be, and the little splotches on it are actual snowflakes, but the good news is, I got a new truck this week.  Well, an old new truck.  If the truck looks familiar, it's because it's my dad's old truck.  A year or so ago, Mike convinced my dad to sell the truck to him and get a new truck.  Mike needed a smaller truck with better gas mileage to use for his business.  He used it for several months, but then sold his business so he didn't need it any more.  So on the day before New Years, he and my dad called to see if I wanted to buy it.  I wasn't so sure, but I sold my white truck in one day for full asking price, so I called them back and told them to ship it out.  I'm very pleased.

The boy sent a little stow-away in the truck.  The girls love him.

On Friday, we got to go to a Penguins hockey game again.  Since Jessica is in Young Women's now, she got to come along this year.  It was an exciting game and the Penguins won!

It's kind of hard to tell in the photo (stupid cheap iPhone camera), but Jessica now has a mouth full of braces.

15 January 2012 - Planting season?

I came downstairs to take the girls to school one morning this week, and Madeline had left Joanne a note:
If you can't read it, it says "Mama, I miss you and love you. Madeline".  She's a sweet kid.

Our January has been very strange.  We've had a pretty mild winter, and some days in the 50s.  I was able to get the Christmas tree planted in the back yard.  The ground wasn't frozen at all when I dug the hole.

Here's the tree beside the hole, ready to have its burlap removed.

Here it is in all its glory.  I put a good bed of mulch around it to help insulate the ball against cold January temperatures.  So far, it looks like it's faring well and should be a nice addition to our back yard.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

8 January 2012 - Back to School, Life

This week Joanne and I went back to teaching and the girls went back to school.  I am teaching CyberLaw this Intersession (January short term), and Joanne is teaching Water Aerobics.  Not to brag or anything, but our two classes are two of the most popular on campus this year.  Joanne even has more boys than girls in her class this time around.

We finally got our second snowstorm of the winter season.  The first one was October 29th, which was really still in the fall.  Since then, our Winter has been unseasonably moderate and warm.  On the day after Christmas, I took the motorcycle for a 15 mile ride.  Most of this week has been equally mild (I got another motorcycle ride in this week), but we took a couple of days out for this snowstorm.  It was only a few inches, and it has since all melted, but it was nice to pretend it was winter for a couple days.  The girls even went out to play in it.

Take a look at this picture of Jessica.  Notice anything different about her?

Yes, our precious little one, the first in our family, is not quite a teenager yet, but this week she got braces.  Well, she got phase one of three -- she still has two more appointments this month before she'll completely have braces.  She'll be in them for two years.  She's not thrilled, but she knows she needs to do it, so we're making it happen.

1 January 2012 - Happy New Year

We enjoyed a quiet week off of school between Christmas and New Year's Day.  Some money Santa left in Jessica's stocking enabled her to reach her savings goal to buy an iPod touch, so on Monday we ordered it, and it arrived on Thursday.  There was much excitement.

Despite what it looks like here, she actually got the black one.  The white border in her hand is part of the packaging.  The younger girls are also saving for their own iPod touches.

To celebrate the New Year (and to use up the last of the Primary's budget for 2011), there was a Primary skating activity on Saturday.  For many of the kids (including mine) it was their first time roller skating.  Here's Emily getting the hang of it.

Madeline certainly got into the groove with her friend Gracie.

Once the kids got the hang of it, the roller skating people got out the limbo tools.

About midway through, we stopped for pizza and drinks, and only one kid puked, so we counted that as a win!  Everyone had a blast.  Afterward, our friends from church, the Larsens, came over for an early New Year's party and played games until about 8:30.  We all celebrated what would be happening four hours later, then they went home and we watched a movie until 12:05 AM, then went to bed.  It was a very fine way to ring in the New Year.