Frozen Fountains

Daddy was back at work today, and look at the fountains - and the pond - in front of the church.  It's not thick enough to go ice skating on, but Daddy does have ice skates at home, so that's not so far-fetched an idea.  It might even be fun, if the temperature goes significantly lower.

Madison was back to piano today too, her first of the year.  Daddy's first work day of the year.  Yeah, it's that time of year again to say "first this of the year" and "first that of the year."  This is my first time writing about that this year too.  Okay, I'll stop.

It was a busy day, as there's still so much to be written and planned for.  Tomorrow night we're having our first KidPak of the year (see, I did it again).  We'll have small groups, and Daddy has a plan involving glow-in-the-dark paint.

Tonight's plans were certain:  "The Desolation of Smaug."  It was the second of the Hobbit trilogy, and it was actually a pretty good movie.  The three of us enjoyed all of it, and thus far have been more impressed with this trilogy.  The bar was pretty low, as we've heard from various sources that it isn't as good as the original trilogy.  And while that's true, that doesn't make these bad movies.  It's just great to see Gandalf and company again.  And it's great to see other old friends from Middle Earth as well, including Sauruman.

We ran out of popcorn bags for the flick, but Mommy cooked up some popcorn in a pan, and life was good.  We read from "The Westing Game" tonight, and we've started reading from the book of John together, to start out the new year.  Soon enough, we'll begin the fasting devotional as well.  Tonight's reading was from the Message translation of the Bible, which I thought would be more interesting to read with Madison and Mommy.  However, it may be more difficult to understand at points, given that Madison hasn't gone through the entire book of John yet.  So, that said, we're going back to the NIRV translation, which is pretty much the "plain English" version.  We'll stop from time to time to talk about what's been read, and of course pray afterwards.  The idea is to go through 2018, and do this each night, setting up a great pattern for the year.