What January Looked Like

Care Bear went to the trampoline park with Finley.

They had a great time.

Comfort food

aka Chicken pot pie

I got a sneak peek at Whitney's tap class.

She gets to do some partnering.

Quality time with my fave toddler twins

My friend, Julie, invited me to play in a member-guest

tournament with her. It was indoors at Piedmont. 

It was so much fun.

I love playing with Julie.

She is a super consistent teammate

and lets me go for everything at the net.

She's a member at The Cardinal,

where I have lots of friends,

so we had a great time visiting

in between matches.

AND we ended up winning our bracket!

I left with lots of great prizes!

Great way to spend a cold Sat night.

Caroline is having a great time in YW.

They got to do cake decorating for one of

her first activities. She nailed it. :)

PGSA winter concert

Caroline somehow ended up being her class representative

for the school spelling bee. After her experience in fourth grade,

she told me she never wanted to do another spelling bee.

She invited me to come watch.

It was a very casual affair around a table in the media center.

Even though she didn't spend any time studying,

she did well, taking fourth place.

She was the last girl standing.

She hated it, though.

Too much pressure.

Temple date night!

Love it!

In January, we always do a service project in 

honor of Wyatt. This would have been his 13th birthday.

We actually picked two this year.

Caroline's school is collecting items

for foster families.

They had a wish list. 

The four of us got to go shopping together and fill

our cart with items for the foster families.

Then on MLK day, the girls and I went to 

an elementary school in High Point to 

help assemble new classroom furniture.

There was a BIG turnout,

so the work went by fast.

Afterward we met friends at another trampoline park. 

Splits across america!

Piece of cake for this climber

Fun, fun, fun

The girls actually had a four day weekend,

also having the day AFTER MLK day off.

I wanted to go on a road trip,

but my homebody girls wanted to stay home.

We had a great time.

The US Figure Skating Championships were in town!

Lucky!

The early sessions have very affordable tickets.

We got to watch the Junior Pairs.

It was fantastic.

They had a Fanfest downstairs that was free.

We were some of the only people down there.

It was so cool!

Fun photo opps

We got to help color a giant mural.

 Bouncy slides.

They also had a little bounce house,

free popcorn and drinks, free video games,

and there you could watch the skaters at the

practice arena.

So happy we could be part of this event!

Young Women's basketball has started!

Whitney isn't playing this year,

but Caroline invited KK, so the two of them are playing. 

They are both so LITTLE compared to some of 

the YW. But they seem to be having fun out there!

Grateful to the Greenwoods for coaching.

Whitney got to cash in on her Christmas gift--

tickets to watch My Fair Lady down in Charlotte. 

We stopped for a yummy dinner at Panera.

Also had time to do some shopping before the show.

Overall, the show was REALLY good.

So many familiar songs.

And the sets were cool,

done in a vanishing perspective.

There was just one scene

(Eliza's Dad's bachelor party),

where they took some liberties and

made it skankier than the movie.

I could've done without that.

Great actors. Great voices.

Love going to shows with my girl!

Shelley's mom passed away this month.

It has been devastating.

My heart breaks for Shelley, Shannon, and their Dad.

I decided to go down to Orlando for the funeral. 

Stayed the night with Marianne on the way down.

Their home and the stake center are right across from

the Orlando Temple. Got to spend some time on those

beautiful temple grounds.

The first night we were there happened to be R's birthday. 

I'm glad it gave us a reason to celebrate.

During the viewing, Kelly (who ALSO came down from NC)

and I watched the kids. 

We did a photo shoot and walked around the temple.

It's easy to feel helpless when you're friends

are going through tragedies.

I was so happy we could help in this small way.

The funeral itself was really nice.

Their friends from Tucson flew out

to be the speakers.

Being with family during the hard times is helpful.

Friends forever.

After the funeral, I helped get things cleaned up,

but then felt like I should let the family be together. 

So I headed to Disney Springs and walked around.

Also decided to head to Universal CityWalk

 while I was in town.

The next day I hit Cafe Rio on my way out of town. 

Yummy, yummy, yummy.

It was a super quick trip, but I was so happy I could

be with Shelley. And I'm grateful that Andrew could

take care of the girls while I was gone. It was not an easy 

weekend to be away. Whitney had Wingate, an overnight

field trip. So he had to drive to Wingate, back home to get

Caroline after school, back to Wingate to stay the night.

Watched her perform on Sat afternoon, then drive BACK home.

What a great husband and dad!