January 2018

Richard really wants to keep up his family's tradition of going out to breakfast on New Years Day so we headed over to IHOP.  Even though it is really close to our house, we still had to drive over since it was 5 degrees that morning!  

And even though the winter's are SO cold here, we still have to get out and play in the snow when we can. It doesn't last very long but is still so fun! The girls even built a mini ramp off the side of our porch and rode the sled down that little hill over and over again. And they thought it was hilarious to bury each other in the snow and then try to escape from the snow that had been packed down on top of their legs.

Richard and I finally upgraded to a queen-size bed.  I don't know how we've lasted this long on a double but I loved our bed so much that there wasn't as big of a hurry to get a new one.  Unfortunately, as we were moving our old mattress down into the basement, Richard pulled the mattress and it slipped through my hands as we were going down the stairs.  One of the staples was sticking out and it ripped through my hand!  It hurt incredibly bad.  When I sliced my finger with an olive can two years earlier, it didn't seem to hurt as much as it should have, but this one definitely did!  It was on a weekend night and I didn't want to go to the emergency room unless I absolutely had to.  We FaceTimed Tony who told me it probably did need stitches but he told me how to keep my hand wrapped up to heal the best way possible if I didn't end up going so that is what we did!  

One freezing day, the power went out in our whole neighborhood just as I was getting back from the grocery store.  The good news was that I could just leave the groceries in the car outside and nothing would go bad.  The bad news was that it was 10 degrees outside and we had no heat!  Brookie and I wrapped up in blankets and snuggled on the bean bag and it was honestly one of the best afternoons of my life.  Sometimes we don't realize how distracted (and completely reliant) we are on electricity unless it goes away!  We read lots of books, pretended to be hiding from monsters, played board games, etc.  It was a great (cold) afternoon!