"Why... It's a Major Award!"

Madison had an award ceremony this morning, one where she got two awards, but no check.  That's the running joke around here:  "The child mentioned a check?"  It's from the movie "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," which some of us at work seem to quote religiously, and of course Mommy and Daddy do as well.  In fact, a lot of Christmas movies find their way into dialogue all year round.  Another applicable quote would be from the dad in "A Christmas Story."  Madison held up her certificates, so of course we said in our best Christmas Story voice, "Why... it's a major award!"

And it is a major award, of course.  We couldn't be there this morning - more on that in a bit - but you can see Madison in the back row, just the top of her head really.  She and others were honored for grades.  Madison got all A's last semester, as we have talked about frequently here.  And it was real work for her to get to that, something that really came down to the last test in Math, the one she did so well on.  That was a great moment there for her and us as well, one worth celebrating.  That part is coming up soon, actually.

But in the meantime, as is the custom, there were gift cards or free coupons handed out to all the achieving kids, to places like Chili's restaurant.  Okay, I just had a complete blank-out there - I was really wanting to spell "Chili" like "Chile," which is in fact a country in South America.  I would like to visit Chile some day, but the sad truth is that this might have to wait some time.  Instead, let's focus on going to Chili's with Madison, who wants to go - after the fast, of course.  She loves spicy food, so as you can imagine, a restaurant with a hot pepper for a logo is a destination she can't wait to return to.

So what was it that made Mommy and Daddy miss the ceremony?  First of all, they didn't tell us until the last possible moment that there even was a ceremony.  We found out Friday afternoon, and it was too late to change Daddy's eye doctor appointment.  So that's where Daddy was with Mommy, who was there to drive home for us just in case they wanted to do those eye drops in Daddy's eyes to relax them.  They did not, which was fine by me.  But Madison will be going to this same destination very soon, both she and Mommy have appointments in a week.  As noted here earlier, Madison has noticed some vision troubles in the classroom, so we'll want to get that addressed right away.  Perhaps very soon all of us will be wearing glasses in the house - I don't know.  Daddy's appointment today resulted in a standard update - no prescription or anything.  I'll probably just wear reading glasses for a bit until I have to wear stronger ones, and then after that I might have to try bifocals.  This is a part of the aging process.  Which is such an ugly phrase.

Anyway, Mommy made her delicious corn chowder today, which is a January tradition.  Madison loves trying out the Boston accent from time to time, and she'll holler out, "Chowda!"  Get in the cah, and let's go get some chowda'!

We're working on our upcoming Romans series this week, which promises to be really good stuff.  It starts in February, but this week is all about finalizing that booklet.  I'm so happy about the mascot for this series, our Gladiator from our Summer Xtreme series almost seven years ago.  He's a great character, and it's awesome to see him have new life again.  You'll be seeing him again here soon!

Madison enjoyed school today - she always does, for the most part.  She's been healthy too.  Mommy and Daddy were taking down Christmas things today, all while watching movies from Christmas or before.  As the decorations were coming down, we saw "Straight Talk," which is an old Dolly Parton movie that Daddy had wanted for Christmas.  It was one of those that I never got around to seeing, and I was kind of interested in seeing it, even though I knew it would be something fairly predictable.  And it was, but it was pleasant and fun, and we both enjoyed that.  While taking the ornaments off the main tree here, we both watched "The Money Pit" too, which is a classic in our household.  We have so many lines from that still memorized.  Yes, it takes a long time to take these Christmas decorations down - we have so many, and it's a big process.  Keep in mind we lost a week at vacation time, but we'll keep at it and have these all down soon enough.

So it was a good day today, complete with a visit to piano class tonight.  Madison is choosing to play a song from her "Greatest Showman" book, and I think that is "Rewrite the Stars."  We'll be hearing various versions of that for the next few weeks!

Tonight we had our rhythm back with bedtime rituals:  one episode of "Star Wars Rebels," followed by a lot of reading.  Daddy is reading the Dr. Seuss devotional now, plus the book of Acts, plus our current book with Peter Pan.  Lord Ombra is lurking in the darkness, and it's been fun to read this ongoing adventure each night.  It's a big book though!

We said our prayers, and there were the zerberts and also the accusations about who smells the worst. In other words, a pretty good day!