January

First bike ride with my Christmas present.  Clipping in was a bit scary.  I've fallen over a couple times, of course when I am with Adam (both times were while standing still - I usually only clip out of one side, while waiting for the lights to change, so if I forget or lean too far on the clipped in side, I'm a goner, and tip over).  Ha!!  Adam said everyone does it. 

 Ava's preschool garden in January.  Now it's huge and the chard is bolting so I need to take it out.

 Awesome sunset.  Every couple minutes the sky turned a different color. 

 At a bounce house for our friend Grant's birthday party. 

 Uncle Min visited us for a couple days in January.  He had an obligation in San Francisco, so we got to spend some time with him.   He went shopping for us and loaded us up with fishing gear. 

 Trying out the fishing gear at Rollins Lake.

 Went with some friends to try fishing again, but no luck.  The kids mainly played on the rocks anyway.  We have YET to catch a fish, but I'm reassured remembering Min's luck when he first started wasn't so great either.

 Used aunt Amy's Marriott discount and got an amazing room at South Lake Tahoe for a night (thanks Amy!!).

 We met our friends, the Martinez family for the weekend to play in the snow (or lack thereof).

 Lots of hot tubs, so each person could have their own. :)

 Tahoe is beautiful and the weather was unseasonably warm for January - I believe it was upper 60's.

 The kids had fun playing on the beach and chasing seagulls.

 We found a little bit of snow on the way home to try and sled on. 

 The moss on the trees is so cool looking, almost fluorescent green.

 We forgot sleds, so we rednecked it and found a piece of a broken one and used it.

  The kids stole my phone and found a cool setting to take pictures with.  I have lots of random photos.

 

I got new knives for our anniversary last year (LOVE THEM), so I took a knife/chopping class.  The teacher emphasized a million times to tuck in your fingers while chopping.  It's sort of a weird technique to get used to.  I'd been doing it for awhile, and then one Sunday I was chopping veggies and thinking how I don't really like chopping like that, and so I 'un-tucked' my fingers, and then almost immediately I chopped off the tip of my finger!!!  Amazingly it grew back.  The new corner of my finger was numb for a few weeks, it's back to normal now.

 

After Christmas, we told the kids they could pick one extra curricular activity to sign up for.  Ava picked horse lessons, Grant picked baseball and Noah wanted to do karate again, but later changed his mind to Cello.   

 She did horse lessons for about 6 weeks and then decided it was 'too boring' and wanted to try gymnastics. :)  She was sure cute on that big horse for the few times she did go to lessons.  It's fun to see what interests each of my kids tend to gravitate towards.  I don't want them to start and stop a million things, but while they are young, I don't mind them trying a few things to see what they like. 

 Noah at scouts.  He likes going to den meetings, but has social anxiety problems at pack meetings. Ugh!!!  I thought we were over that.

 I try to take at least one picture on my bike rides. It's so beautiful and green here, so I get side tracked with scenery during my rides.   January was nice and warm, so I got some great riding in. 

 Taught Grant the importance of saving the left over chocolate ganache (made Boston Cream Pie the night before) for dipping bananas into it.

That about sums up January.