January

The new year greeted us with an extremely cold and wet weekend, but thankfully not quite cold enough to freeze the roads.  I was still surprised to see ice on our trees when the wind chill dropped below freezing.  The weather forecast said an overnight low of 30F and when we woke up it was 19!  Coldest night we've had in this house, but thank goodness the only thing that froze was the overflow valve on our sprinkler.  And of course, being Texas, it was back up to 80 degrees the next week.

 

We spent lots of time in January working on science fair projects.  Alex tested which materials weakened the wi-fi signal the most (move your router away from metal - that was the worst!) and found that human bodies have little effect.

Ben did a very cool experiment on an optical illusion and tested each of us with his two different methods.

They both got judged at school and I was so thrilled and proud of them when they each brought home first place in their respective categories!  Science is cool in this house!!

We had a fun afternoon playing with Grandma at the mall and seeing a movie.

Grandma is a trooper - she even went on the spinning teacup with Alex!  I get motion sick easily and I was so happy when Alex was tall enough to ride the carousel alone.

I had a wonderful day trip to Gruene to see two of my very favorite people in the world.  We met in the dorm at A&M almost 20 years ago! 

 

I found a bacon soda at the Gruene general store and had to get it for Ben.  He couldn't wait to try it but found out it was as good as it sounds (disgusting).  He loves bacon and he loves cokes, but not at the same time.

Poor guy got his bottom braces on and needed a day at home to load up on advil and drink all his meals.  He's a tough kid, so when he says the pain is bad, I know it's bad!  Luckily, Casey was ready to take care of him.

Even though it's still (technically) winter, we're back at the ballpark again.  Time to gear up for another season of spring baseball!

Happy New Year!

We rang in the new year like the party animals we have been in the past - with some fireworks on the street around 7pm!  (In our defense, we were planning to wait until later but the kids all got together and coerced the parents outside)

 

Fun with sparklers first...

...then on to bigger bangs.

Then we sat back and enjoyed the real show.  As much as I hate listening to fireworks for weeks, it's pretty fun watching the displays all as far as we can see.

Finally, we finished up with the kids' favorite part - the burning of the trash.  Technically not in our neighborhood codes, but it had just rained a few hours before so we let them go bigger.

And go big they did!  They emptied all of our recycling boxes from the garage and enjoyed every minute of it.

The aftermath.  Another successful celebration in the books.

It's hard to believe another year has come and gone so quickly but 2016 was a happy year for our family.  We're looking forward to 2017 and wish our loved ones all the best!