The Close of January

Wow, I can't believe January is over.  In ways it felt like a really long month.  In others, very short.  We had a bit of snow which is fun. Thankfully people still came in at Lee's office.  That is always a bonus!

 We are still enjoying the skiing.  We go at least once a week.  It was fun seeing some young ladies out skiing and snowboarding in skirts.

My good friend Katherine surprised me with a late birthday present.  She picked me up and took me to get my nails done! 

I met up with my nephew Joseph to see him before his Eagle Board of Review.  He transferred to our troop, finishing his Eagle through our troop.  He is now an Eagle Scout!

I saw our church friend Jerry at the hospital.  He goes every Thursday to bring cheer to patients.  I loved seeing him.  What a terrific service from him!

I showed Cal how to sew on a merit badge.  He sewed on one!

This month at the food bank I dumped a box of sealed food in mylar bags.  A bag sliced my finger. It kept bleeding and I had to change out the bandaid. 

One random night some of the kids did a singing dance party thing.  I quite enjoyed it, haha. 

Lee was invited to go with some of his friends to Snowshoe, a ski resort in West Virginia.  We wives got together thanks to my friend Brittany and her invite to have dinner at her house. 

Lee's employees gave him a pass to Massanutten for ice skating for the whole family!  

My brother Sheldon gave us Biblios.  We love this game and have played it several times. 

Did any of you see the super blood moon?  It was awesome!  My brother-in-law Mike took some AMAZING photos of it. 

We've been enjoying some family night ski nights as well.  Clark is rocking the hat hair. 

Clark has been flying his drone this winter.  Now that he has learner's permit he likes to drive to the park and on different errands.  We bought a little manual car so he can learn stick shift.  

Wow, What a Weekend!

Tuesday was such a warm day!  60! We had to take advantage of the warm weather and go skiing.

A lot of snow has melted off the slopes.

So funny.  I think Haley got ahold of my phone.

We finally finished Elden's pumpkin roll!

After school one day Haley made some pudding and did some cute hearts on some vanilla wafers.

Friday evening we were privileged to got to a fireside with Elder Christofferson and his wife, and Elder Randall Bennett and his wife in Lexington, Virginia.  I picked up the kids right after school, stopped by to bring two friends with us, then headed down.  We stopped at Burger King for an early dinner then went to the stake center. I think we had room to choose from...








































































































Afterwards the youth shook Elder Christofferson's hand and his wife's.  So neat! He is one of Jesus Christ's 12 apostles on the earth. This was a neat experience.

We had fun getting ice cream afterwards with our ward!

Saturday we enjoyed going to my nephew Blake's baptism.  Cal was asked to talk about baptism and gave a fun, succinct talk.

I snapped a picture of Jeff and Blake right after the baptism.

Oh, here are my notes from the fireside on Friday if you are interested.  At the end Elder Christofferson did a question and answer session in case it gets confusing.

After the baptism we headed to the Philadelphia temple with Shanna, Haley, Cal and Clark!  We all did baptisms.  The girls were so excited, I loved it. The girls even met the temple president.

We hit up a fun ice cream place in Philadephia, the Franklin Fountain.

A snow storm moved in Saturday afternoon.  The kids went out Saturday night and played in the snow. 

Church was canceled today for us and Lois.  And since we were at Lois' we had a fun morning hanging out!

We left Lois' a little after 2pm.  I did not want to drive home in the dark because our area was in a winter storm warning.  It was pretty crummy from about DC to Luray.  The drive went well and we arrived home safely.  It took us longer to get home than normal, but that's okay.

Shanna bought some Lego friends pods last week with her work money and has been loving them.