January started with a big surprise party for my neighbor. Since I don’t know a lot of her friends and family, I became an observer and photographer of the party. It made me so happy to sit back and watch her enjoy the people who came to surprise her and shower her with love. This photo captured the moment she realized her son had flown in town from North Carolina to surprise her. As she was going in for a hug, her eye caught the presence of her daughter, who had flown in from Florida. Such exuberant joy! (And this photo is just another reason why I love photography!)
Dan’s cousin, Craig, got married in mid-January in Belize. Before the big beach wedding, the couple had a pre-wedding reception. It was in a beautiful and funky art gallery I have never even heard of. (But wish I had! It’s called the Randall Gallery.) There was great food and lots of dancing, including Gangnam Style. Sheesh!
This winter’s weather has been all over the place: really cold and really warm. On one of those warm days, Jackson and I went to the zoo for the first time since the new sea lion exhibit was built. It was a nice, unplanned Mommy-Son day. Katie and Dan were serving on our church Outreach team that day and had their own Daddy-Daughter day.
Another big deal for January: Jackson’s reading skills have dramatically improved. This was the first (long) book he’s ever read completely on his own. I don’t have a photo of it, only a video. Womp, womp.
One Saturday morning, I was at the kitchen table eating breakfast and saw a hawk land on our tree house. He sat on the rail for almost an hour, devouring a bird he caught. I took photos of him the entire time. Gross, yes… but amazing too. (Can’t you just hear The Lion King song playing? “In the circle of life…”)
My birthday comes at the end of January. On the Sunday closest to my birthday, my boss had all of our ministry volunteers celebrate by bringing me sweet cards and showering me with hugs. There was a homemade cake and silly princess tiaras for us to wear. But the most memorable part of the day for me was when the power went out between our 9am and 11am services. We ended up canceling the 11am worship service, which was a bummer. But on the bright side? I got a half day off work. Here’s a (bad iPhone) photo of people waiting in the lobby with the power out.
I’ve been learning and reading a lot about sensory defensiveness and ADHD lately (because of Jackson’s diagnosis), and came across an inexpensive running trampoline. I decided to buy it and give the kids a spot to work out energy inside the house. They love bouncing on it. On a side note, we also started the kids in gymnastics because our karate dojo closed. Katie has been in gymnastics since first grade but we took a break for fall of last year, and she picked it back up very quickly. Jackson is loving his new gymnastics class, and it gives him so much happiness to know he has his own class to go to and his own buddies in class.
Remember that crazy weather I talked about? January 29th was so warm that four kids at our bus stop wore shorts/capris to school. (Two pair of shorts/capris are blocked in this photo.)
And then? January ended with my birthday. I’ll have to write an entire separate post for that, because it was epically fantastic. Stay tuned!
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