Dear Friends and Family,
Now that the March is about over, I thought I'd take a minute and post about January! Ha ha ha.
Seriously,
though, I'd like to make an effort again this year to work on keeping
everyone updated with what is going on in our lives. Here's what
happened in January--I'm sorry I don't have my act together enough to
include pictures, but I'm pretty good at posting those on Facebook, so
you can check there.
Here's the scoop...
Dan
and Margie rang in the new year at the home of some theatre friends.
Margie's mom, Carolyn, was still here from her Christmas visit, so she
babysat. She and the kids had their own celebration. We also had a
joint birthday celebration for John and Carolyn, and a special dinner
for John.
Dan spent the month (as well as much of December) building a Model-T Ford for The Little Theatre of Alexandria's production of Ragtime. It was a huge success and was even mentioned in several of the reviews. You will find them by doing a quick Google Search.
Margie
got sick with a bad case of the flu the day after her mom left, so she
was down for the count for several weeks. This was particularly
stressful, since Dan and Margie had agreed to cater the Opening Night
Party for Ragtime. Luckily, everything turned out well. We had
several comments that it was the best opening night party people had
ever been to. People were impressed by the variety of food and the
elegance of the dishes. No one noticed that the food aligned with the
themes of the show: most items came in threes (for example, three
different kinds of crostini), or were shaped like wheels (for example,
the mini cinnamon rolls and the spiral sandwiches). We even had
"exploding brownies" (topped with Pop Rocks) and raspberry, blueberry,
and banana fruit skewers displayed like the American Flag. (OK, they
did notice that last one.)
Lyn stayed busy with the
church program for Young Women, as well as ballet, and school, of
course. This month she also auditioned for the school musical Willy
Wonka and was delighted to be cast as and OomPah LoomPah! The show goes
up the first weekend in April. We hope some of you will be able to see
it.
John, too, is staying busy. He is in the
Electronics Club at school, and in January they learned about
electricity and circuits. He also continues to play piano, and be
active in the combined Boy Scouts and Young Men's program at church. I
think it was January when the boys went on their "deep freeze"--they
camped when the temperature was in the teens! John slept in a double
sleeping bag (thanks for the suggestion, Dad!) and says he was just
fine. Amazing! John also joined an Odyssey of the Mind team at
school. The team solved an assigned challenge and the presented their
solution at a regional competition in March (more on that later).
Google will give you some more information on that as well, if you're
interested. Oh, and John turned 12 in January! This is a big deal for
young men in the church and comes with the special responsibility of
passing the bread and water at church on Sundays. It brings a tear to
mom's eye to watch him do this.
At the end of the
month, Dan and Margie attended a sales presentation and won a free trip
for four to Great Wolf Lodge--a family hotel and indoor waterpark.
There are several locations, and we can choose from any of them. We
decided to go to Niagra Falls, Canada! We'll be headed there this
summer. Dan better get busy getting his passport.
That's it for January--February news coming soon!
Dan, Margie, Lyn and John
