"Back To Life, Back To Reality..."

2 Years, 38 Weeks.


The immortal words from the hit single by Soul II Soul back in 1989.

And yes, I just dated myself.

This week was just that:  Back to life, back to reality.  After a glorious two weeks off, we've had to get ourselves reacclimated back to sea level and back to playing...err...working.  Uh...yeah.

So you'll forgive, after last weeks gargantuan post, that this week I'll just do a quick highlights reel.

I think I owe it to myself!

• Friday morning was Christmas 2.0 at our house.  After we had arrived late the night before and had finished putting the kids to bed, Tangie was like, "Hey, we need to wrap the presents and put them out for the morning?"  And I was like, "Are you serious right now?"  And she was like, "I think it would be suspicious if presents appeared several days later, especially with Christmas being over."  And I was like,"You're right.  Okay, let's get it over with."

         After waking up and redoing Christmas morning all over again, we headed out to 

         Costco, Target, and Publix to restock up on our provisions.  My parents had
         visited the house while we were away and had cleaned out the fridge so we
         wouldn't be welcomed home by the stench of rotting food.  We capped off the
         night with a mini reunion with the Bergs at the Grodacks'.

Ready to do it all over again!

Teamwork.

A Friday Costco run this week!  It was cool enough to wear our fleece jackets!

The kids' table at the Grodack's.

• Sabbath we headed to church, and saw many friends there, some back from being gone for the holidays as we were.  We did lunch at the Olive Garden and then headed home for naps.  Tangie gave me the evening off so I went on a date night with Duncan and his parents; we went and saw the movie Lincoln.  A very good film that focused on the passing of the 13th Amendment (abolition of slavery).  If I ever had any doubts as to why he might be our nation's greatest President, they were quickly put to rest after watching this film.  Politicians today are no comparison to those who were shaping the foundations of our country 150 years ago.

All three together at Sabbath School.  Can you tell who is who?

My beautiful ladies!

The boys hang out together.

• On Sunday afternoon Tangie had to fly out to Pensacola for an early meeting first thing Monday morning.  That left me solo with the kids.   Lolo and Lala had attended a wedding reception at the Gaylord Palms Resort so they swung by for an hour to see the kids before they left on their trip to see Mike and Gen in California.   The rest of the week was a blur, but luckily I took some pictures so I could remember what it was that we did.

Look closely, Braelyn and Kohl are inside the blocks.

A well deserved afternoon treat!

A visit to the playground!  It's been at least three weeks since we've been to one!

Maddy enjoying a glorious January afternoon.

Can you tell by that face?

An evening art project.

We met up with the Grodacks for story time at the library.  You can tell Corey was really into the book.

I taught at Adventurer's this week on animal homes.  Here the class was about to watch the powerpoint presentation!

Christmas 3.0!  Opening gifts from our great neighbors and friends.  Thank you Grodacks!

A sibling smooch at Costco this week.

Another gorgeous afternoon and opportunity to feed some less fortunate water fowl.

New addition:

• After 4 solid years of everyday use, sometimes even twice a day (especially when we had 20 bottles to clean when the twins were newborns) our dishwasher finally gave up it's last breath.  Actually, it hadn't been doing a good job in quite some time and we've tolerated it but given that it's a brand new year we decided enough was enough.    

         So, goodbye GE, and hello Whirlpool.                                                                                

Our late dishwasher.

White on the inside, you could see the mineral deposits and staining, yecch!

Our new Whirlpool.

Silver and shiny inside!

Randoms:

Our Christmas card wall this year.  That's a lot of love!

Out of sight, out of mind.  What we found under the old dishwasher, including a missing puzzle piece!

The technicians installing the new unit.  Note the second guy's head on the floor between the first guy's legs!

Dishes prepared this week:

Braised Beef Short Ribs on Basmati with Mini Sweet Peppers.

A brisket I cooked for 7 hours in the crock pot.  So tender!

Petite Tenderloin Filet on Rice and Vegetables.

Quotes:

• On Monday we were picking Brae up from school when her teacher informed me that she had fallen asleep and taken a nap during quiet time. The kids were still trying to get back to our own time zone so I was actually pleased that she had fallen asleep.  When I asked her how long she had slept, she stretched her arms wide open and said, "This long."

• We were passing by a daycare and Kohlden spotted their playground:

          Kohl:  "Are we going [to] that playground?"

          Me:  "No, that one is for babies.  Are you a baby?"

          Kohl:  "No.  I not."

          Me:  "Are you a toddler?"

          Kohl:  "Uh..."

          Maddy:  "I taller!"

• Proof that evolution exists:  At the playground Brae was going on the monkey bars (which actually didn't have any "bars") and I mentioned to her that she was like a little monkey, to which she responded, "That's because God made me like a monkey!"

Our biggest monkey!

Have a great weekend!