Sunny Day in January

Look at the Valentine's decorations Mom put out on our porch!  It's that season, and things look nice out there, especially with that sunrise behind the house.  After a pretty loud night, the sun came out big time today and gave us a splendid afternoon that was so warm and dry and just everything you want in a day in the midst of January.  Unless of course you're wishing for snow, and that seems highly unlikely at present.  It's supposed to be cold upcoming, but that's okay because it's January. And today was just fine too.  We were outside working this afternoon, along with the lizards that were there nearby sunning themselves.

 Here's the other thing we were doing - a giant version of "Don't Break the Ice."  That'll show up on KPTV in a couple Sundays, but it was fun watching the players pound out the white boxes of ice there, trying not to bring down the doll on top of things.  It got really tense, and in many ways was just like "Yeti Spaghetti."

I dropped Madison off at school this morning, early again just like the whole week here.  She's getting there early to join her other friends in Live to Give so they can receive donations for the coat drive.  As you may recall, they're taking donations - jackets - to give to needy families during the winter season.  As of this writing, they've gotten as many as forty jackets.  To think, this idea started with Madison, another member and the teacher.  And now they've seen it come to pass, and it's pretty rewarding.  They're doing a great job!

This morning's walk was around the volcano craters on the Big Island of Hawaii.  At work, I was proofing and writing today, but came home a little earlier because Nana was having another bad day.  Yesterday wasn't great either in that department.  It's very taxing.  Tonight she and I took Madison to taekwondo, and that was nice, watching the kids practice and spar.  They were using nunchucks too, which never gets old.  We stopped at a gas station on the way home and get candy bars.  It turns out that this was largely the only thing Nana ate today, as she's been declining everything offered.

Speaking of declining, Madison's grades have been heading in that direction too - slightly.   Of course, these are just the first grades of the semester.  Maybe we can come up with some incentive to get these grades to climb a little higher up, Maddie?  We'll work on some ideas.  Maybe a trip to Galaxy's Edge this summer?  How about that?

Okay, anyway, tonight while she was studying for math and listening to music and watching videos, we sat down with Nana to watch "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid."  Madison said that even if she didn't have to study, there's be no way she'd want to watch that.  So okay then!  

The three of us enjoyed the movie, and of course it is dated.  But boy, I remember going to see this in theaters, and I remember for some reason that the whole group of us went to eat something at Checkers afterwards.  Funny the things you remember.  

Tonight we read from Matthew again, and we continued with our reading of "Scoundrels," learning about the safe that our heroes have to figure out.  It's going to be a difficult heist for sure!  We prayed, and we were asleep not long after that.  I was reading for a bit, but it was late tonight, and we were all asleep fairly quickly.