January Miscellaneous, 2021

January was quiet, and slow, and really not that exciting, but that's not to say that it was a bad month.  Looking back through our pictures, I realized that even though it wasn't flashy, we experienced a lot of happiness together, and really, what else could we want.  Other than a date night, which we also got.  Tim and I have been in desperate need of a date night for soooo long, and we finally made it happen.  We had burgers, then walked around downtown Provo, and finished the night making candles together at the Wick Lab.  It was so fun just to be together, with no pressures or responsibilities - turns out - we really like each other. 

Hamilton still dominates our lives, and we definitely have more pictures of him than of anything else.  It feels so silly, but we are all just so obsessed with him.  I'm not sure how we can love the little critter so much, but we all definitely do.  

We took advantage of a sunny day and went to the lake.

Still sportin the boot, boo!!

After a few small delays, Luke started Jr. Jazz basketball.  In the past he has always played with friends and Tim has coached.  This year the only person he knows on the team is Drake, hopefully he will have several new friends by the time it is over..  He scored a basket in the first game, so we have definitely started the season off right.  

Last year Luke went with his class on a field trip to the Children's Discovery Museum in Salt Lake.  We got some free passes through a reading program so we headed to the big city for an afternoon of play.  The museum is really quite amazing, it was just so fun to watch the kids learn and play in all the different exhibits.  The life flight helicopter area was probably me and Ruby's favorite, Luke loved anything to do with computer creations. 

After the museum, we wandered around the Gateway shopping area.  It was kind of sad because it was pretty much deserted - but we all had a great time exploring.  

We thought about taking a little trip over the Martin Luther King holiday, but weren't able to make anything work.  When we talked to the kids about how they would like to celebrate our day off, they quickly decided that they wanted to go to Nickel City.  We had the best time together, and the kids were thrilled with the prizes that they won.

We spent an afternoon at the BYU Art Museum.  They had some fun activities to help the kids understand the exhibits better.  It was fun to see them start to make connections between the various pieces, and figure out what style is their favorite.  As we browsed, it became very clear that Luke like impressionist paintings - which of course made me happy since I have always loved impressionism. 

Luke was mesmerized by this enormous Carl Bloch painting.  

Ruby loves the rainbow strings - this is a permanent installation and we all love it!

My mom loves Minerva Teichert.  There was a large exhibit of her Book of Mormon paintings - most were new to me.  This one of Christ in the Americas was so beautiful and symbolic.

Ghost Town was one of my favorites from the exhibit.  

Ruby invited a new friend over to play - she was super excited when she found out that we have a hot top.  It may be January, but that didn't stop them from going back and forth between the hot tub and the trampoline.  Silly girls!  

We have been telling Luke since last year that we would teach him to ski. I had been really excited to teach him but because of my hurt foot, we have been putting it off, hoping I would be able to get back to the mountain.  It hasn't been too disappointing because we haven't had hardly any snow, but poor Luke has been impatient to learn.  We finally decided that he and Tim should go have a ski date - and once I convinced Luke that I wouldn't feel sad if they went without me - the boys were on their way.  Tim took him on the lift instead of trying the tow rope, and was so proud that he made it down the mountain four times, during a snow storm.  Luke had a great time and I can hardly wait to go together.

Just a wrap up to 2020, here are my #topnine photos from Instagram, and my book list for the year 2020.  It seems like my favorite books were ones that I listened to.  Anxious People by Fredrich Bachman was definitely the best of the year.  He is one of my favorite authors, and this one was just amazing - it made me laugh, and cry, and I can't stop thinking about it.