January

We had a great month of January, sadly, with no snow.  We started the year out with Erin altar serving at mass on the 1st, followed by a fun day at home.  We did not do a traditional good luck dinner since it didn’t seem to work so well last year, but we did do a toast to 2020!



Anna went to Sofia’s house on the 2nd for a fun play date and outing with her and Addie.  Saturday began the weekend of ballet auditions for Erin - first up was a trip to North Raleigh for her to audition for the Carolina Ballet summer intensive 2-week camp...spoiler alert:  she got in!  She is so excited to spend 2 weeks dancing and learning lots of ballet in a fun setting this summer.  Sunday, she tried out for a dance theater/ballet performance at her dance school, but did not get a part in that one.

Monday the 6th was back to school, and we had a fairly quiet week getting back in the swing of things.  Anna went to new friend Maddy’s house for a fun birthday dinner at Bonefish and playtime at her house.  Saturday, Bob helped take the nativity set down at church and Anna had her first of many Science Olympiad meetings for the two events she’s participating in on March 28th.  So far, she is really enjoying it and is learning a lot!  Erin was an altar server again on the 12th, Bob worked the pancake breakfast at church, and Anna had fun at Gerald’s tae kwon do birthday party after her second science Olympiad meeting of the weekend.

The kids had a fun week of dress down days (with donation) to support the school/church sister parish in Haiti.  The excitement this week was the girls having a teacher workday on Wednesday and Erin had Olivia over to sleep over Tuesday night - they kept me busy with a lemonade stand, baking shortbread, making homemade applesauce, making rosaries, practicing our knitting and crochet, and lots of playing school.



While all of that was happening, Bob and Anna had a really fun adventure at Disney World!  They redeemed the free single-day park hopper ticket that Disney graciously gave them in exchange for the day that Anna missed due to sickness during our trip to August.  They flew down Tuesday evening, stayed at a hotel near Disney, and hit Magic Kingdom and Epcot hard on Wednesday before flying back late that evening.  Most impressively, Anna was back up and at ‘em for school on Thursday morning.  They had great weather and tons of fun!





I got to go in to Erin’s class on Friday afternoon for a social studies Discovery game demo from Erin’s class.  It was pretty complicated!  Saturday, Anna, Laney, Erin, Finley, and I went on a fun hike at Bass Lake in the afternoon.  I went to Liz’s birthday dinner at Chuy’s that evening.  Sunday was more science Olympiad, and Monday was a nice day off of school for MLK Day, which we mostly spent at home and at piano for Erin.  The rest of that week was fairly uneventful...Anna had two sick days at the end of the week with a fever and cough that hung on for awhile, but she is much better now and has all of her sparkle back.

Bob left Saturday afternoon for a week in Vienna, Austria, for an IBM meeting.  It was his first time there, and he really enjoyed the people and the food.







Anna had a blast at Emma’s pottery-painting party that afternoon.  The following week was Catholic Schools Week, which brought more fun dress down days and exciting events for the kids.  Both girls participated in the Living Rosary on Wednesday, and Erin’s music class cantored for school mass on Thursday.

That pretty much sums up January - it was overall a great month, despite the lack of winter weather.  We think Finley needs to see some snow!