DeSantafication!

Here's this year's cast of "The Nutcracker Collection," doing their annual portrait on the kitchen table there.  I took them down this morning, and I was taking a lot of other decorations and ornaments down as well.  

Yes, it's time to phase out Christmas and phase in Valentine's Day, or at least Groundhog Day.  It's not a quick and easy process though, given the amount of decorations we have for Christmas.  But we're moving it all off and downstairs.

It's the last day before the fast, and perhaps that's one reason that Maddie and I went over to Oakwood for a thing of boba tea,  some Sun Moon Lake Milk tea that was actually pretty good.  That's Maddie's go-to flavor, but I tried it this morning and we were both glad in the selection.

So we had movies going on all day as we were taking ornaments off the trees and pulling nutcrackers down.  One series I was wanting to start again was the "Herbie" movie series, so we started with that one.  I can't wait to get to the others, as I haven't seen them in ages - there's four originals, then one 1997 movie, and then the 2005 movie as well.  There's even a television series, although I've never seen that one - but I think this is the year I need to do that!  Anyway, Maddie was watching on and off, but she's also been playing games and talking with friends, just basically spending the day chilling.

It was a quiet day, actually.  We need some of those, in fact.  Maddie did have some homework that she was working on but eventually we got on to "Jurassic Park," tonight, and that was a big event.  She was remembering things as we went along, and of course I have the movie largely memorized!  It's an incredible classic.  Now on to the next two movies.  We're sort of doing a few different series at once here.

Our reading continues, and I'm reading a few different books too.  We're sure to read scripture too, studying Genesis at the moment.  But tonight we crept closer to the end of "I Shall Wear Midnight," which has been fun.  After that, we prayed together and got tucked in.

We got to bed early tonight, as tomorrow we have church in the morning, our first service of the year.  It's the start of the fast too, so we were cramming in the last bits of sweets we could!  We're ready for the fast though, and ready to start this year out right.  First, let's get a good night's rest!