January

After getting home from Utah and recovering from sickness, we did manage to get out to do something fun before the kids were back to school. We met our friends the Karolys at Golfland. we'd never been, for some reason, and the kids all loved it. We even let the ones who were tall enough ride the bumper cars (sadly, Eli wasn't quite tall enough). We had fun catching up while golfing with them, while the kids ran around the course. Then we had fun playing in the arcade.

Then it was back to school and back to the grind. We had a really warm early part of the winter so the kids spent a lot of time playing outside in shorts. Gotta love the bay area!

Lightsaber battle:

One day, I managed to check Nate's lunch that he'd packed before he left and found this:

Just a container of chocolate syrup. There wasn't even a spoon!

Apparently, he needs a bit more supervision in that area. :)

We got the girls hooked on Settlers of Catan and have had fun playing that as a family. Nate doesn't love it but he's coming around.

I planned a yoga night Relief Society activity thinking one of the two instructors in our ward could do it but they weren't able to so I recruited Ann to help me and we led the class (mostly her). We just quickly ran through the hot yoga poses. We had a great turnout! I was not expecting that. 

That actually ended up being the last activity I planned since I was later released and called as YW secretary. That was a big change since I've never been in YW but I've been loving it.

Eli has gotten into actually building the lego sets he has. Before he would mostly just play with the characters and build things on his own. I have to help him with this but I actually don't mind building lego sets. In fact, it inspired me to organize the legos by color and that has made it much easier.

The Oakland temple closed for renovations in February and will stay closed for over a year. I decided to make a trip on Saturday morning in January. I threw it up on our Relief Society's facebook page and got a great response so we carpooled up there. It was a really beautiful morning associating with these great women and spending time in the temple. I was so glad I went.

 I snuck these pictures at a park day gathering with friends. Eli and his little friends were all putting their hands in together for some kind of cheer: