The grand adventures for the Strange kids continue as we flip the calendar over into 2017. The January blog post is always the toughest for me after all of the holidays, the end of the year wrap-ups, etc. But…January is one of my favorites because it’s a fresh start, a new routine, and a chance to start some new traditions. We loved the last few days of the Christmas break before we went back to school. We came home from our Christmas travels on January 1. Our family went to the wedding of a special friend on New Year’s Eve and then drove to Birmingham to spend the night on the way home. Our kids are all about a hotel and an indoor pool! We ordered pizza, had the pool all to ourselves, rang in the New Year an hour early, and called it a year. We slept in and then headed back towards the ATL. Once we rolled into town, we decided to have a family New Year’s celebration with a fun gift card we had received to Pappasito’s. We all ate too much, laughed a lot, and then headed home to unpack and get organized for 2017.
Emma and I continued our tradition of watching the livestream from the Passion Conference as we always do each year. Eli spent most of his days dressed up in one of his football jerseys, wearing his helmet, and running through the house. He’s also gotten really interested in puzzles and sometimes likes to wear his football helmet while he puts the puzzles together!
We went back to school on a Thursday and then promptly began hunkering down for a possible winter storm. School let out early on Friday and everyone rushed home just in time to wait most of the night before the snow began. We all woke up early Saturday morning to a tiny amount of snow and ice…but more than enough to shut us down here in Atlanta. The Strange crew headed out for sledding, snow ball fights, and a walk through the neighborhood. What a fun time of just being together! Everything was still closed Sunday and then again on Monday. We finally were able to get out on Tuesday and get back in the swing of things before the weather returned to the 60s on Wednesday. Crazy winters here in the South!
Emma started playing basketball on Saturday mornings at school as a part of our North Cobb Christian School Soaring Eagles intramural squad. The first session is for 1st/2nd graders and the second session is for 3rd/4th graders. Coach Matta invited her to stay for both sessions. She worked out for 3 hours each Saturday morning for 6 weeks. Super proud of her tenacity! She loved playing basketball and can’t wait to do it again! In the meantime, Eli has discovered that he really likes baseball. While I take Emma to basketball on Saturdays, Clint and Eli have some special guy time at a new batting cage in town after they bond over Chick-fil-A chicken minis. They usually come up to school to watch the end of basketball for Emma. My favorite thing about the basketball mornings has been the way my high schoolers take time to invest in both Emma and Eli by giving them lots of attention and helping them feel really special. I’m so grateful for these awesome role models my kids are growing up around!
Our family joined in the excitement for the Atlanta Falcons run to their first Super Bowl in 20 years. It didn’t turn out like we hoped, but we sure had fun and wore a lot of red and black on Sundays on the way there! Eli’s class had a pirates and princesses day and he was so pumped to be a little pirate…I dare you to ask him to do his pirate voice! Clint bought Emma a rocket from Hobby Town and we went up to school on Sunday afternoon to shoot it off…what a BLAST!
January was a lot of fun. Not anything particularly significant apart from the fact that we got to spend a ton of time together as a family and I wouldn’t trade that for anything!
