January 2014

 Happy New Year from Elk Grove. To bring in the new year we went to the most wonderful fireworks show. Sacramento City put on a display at 9 pm over the river. It was spectacular to see the fireworks light up the sky. We parked near Raley Field and the kids got out to play in the big open fields and near the riverwalk. We pulled out our blankets on that mild evening and watched in awe. After the fireworks we came home and went to bed. All done celebrating by 10 pm!

 The month has been a good one for other fun festivites. We celebrated Eva's birthday with an evening of the BCS national football game. As part of the party, they hired a face painter and balloon animal artist to keep the kids occupied while we watched the game, ate lots of food, and generally had a great time. Our kids tried as many designs as they could fit on their arms and face.
 Tanner was very excited this month to attend his first cub scout den meeting and pack meeting. He earned his bobcat badge and he is now in the wolf pack. His den leader is great and there are a whole bunch of boys that regularly attend, so it gets crazy and fun at pack meeting. Next month they have the pinewood derby and he is already planning his design.
 It became quite a party month. On one Saturday Tanner went to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese while Parker and Alyssa went to another party at King Skate. Darryl was the roller skating champion that day. He was out there with the kids for 2 full hours of skating fun. I got a little chance to party with my very great friend Suzette. She and I went up to Sacramento to watch the professional ballet company give a short exhibition of their upcoming show. We got there pretty early, so we decide to go get a gelato then come back to the rehearsal studio. We found the most amazing place. It was called Devine Gelateria & Cafe. After our wonderful snack and some great ballet, we came home to pick up our husbands and take them out to the theatre for the evening. We went to the Runaway Stage production of Young Frankenstein. It was pretty good for community theatre. I didn't care for the plot all that much. It's a show created by Mel Brooks. The part I did like was the talent of the actors. They had some pretty stellar voices and they were so committed to their parts that it made a lot of the funny parts really stick, unfortunately the humor was a little off color. We enjoyed the evening for the company and the time together.
 School has been fun for Parker and Alyssa. Parker had a "snow" day at school. They got to build ice sculptures and wear all their warm clothes in the classroom. They talked about snow and went in a bear's cave to talk about hibernation. Parker has lots of great friends at preschool and they sere pretending to be bears and would roar and flash their flashlights in the cave. It got a good laugh out of many of the parents and other kids.
 Alyssa, Parker and I went on the field trip with the Moms Club. We went to Lowe's for a tour. The general manager's wife is the president of our club, so we got to have a very fun tour. Because he is a father of all boys, he was very relaxed about the kids climbing on and touching everything. All the kids were toddler to preschool age and their favorite areas were the porch swings, the riding lawn mowers, the fork lifts and the mini hammers that they got to keep as their gift for visiting. We also got a simple wood project that we could do at home. Alyssa got a school locker and Parker got a wooden race car. He was extra excited about it because Tanner gets to build a pinewood derby car and now he has a race car too.

 I couldn't possibly talk about January without mentioning our crazy weather. For at least 1 week this month we had temperatures in the mid-high 70's on one afternoon I saw the local thermometer register 81 degrees at 4 pm. It was so warm the kids were bringing out their shorts and we made several trips to the park to enjoy the evening until it was too dark to stay. We are in a sever drought in California and have gone more than 45 days without any rain at all. It's the driest weather in over 100 years and we are feeling it. Our allergies have been severe and we've all taken turns with coughs and colds, but mostly everything is so dry. As the month came to a close, the rain finally came. It drizzled for a day or 2 then we got some really good thunder storms. We have all been fasting and praying for rain, and I think our prayers have been heard.
 Another unusual event happened one beautiful morning. As we were sitting down to breakfast we look out to the backyard and saw a gorgeous hawk enjoying his breakfast of pigeon on our lawn. He stayed for more that 30 minutes and made a nice pile of feathers for us. It was fascinating to get to see such a beautiful bird up close. In fact it was all we could do to keep Alyssa inside the house. She wanted to go give it a hug. We hope our hawk friend returns another day.