January Recap

So January came and went just like *that*!

It was much fuller than we thought it would be and definitely a whole lot fuller than we had planned.

We used to do a weekly recap on our old blog, but in this season of life, we shall have to go with a monthly recap, so here’s the highlight reel for January…in no particular order of events because that’s how we roll!

After enjoying a wonderful winter break, we were back to the stuff of life. Some activities started right up again, but eventually we were back in the swing of things with our weekly happenings like dinner with both sides of our families, worship team rehearsals, library visits, discipleship group, Awana, homeschool group, community children’s choir. We love being with family and close friends who “get us” and love us despite our faults and shortcomings.

Norm probably had to adjust to the most schedule changes as our year started because he was ordained as an elder in our church, so there were leadership meetings, elder training, and other meetings to get acquainted with his new responsibilities.

And…while he doesn’t travel often for work, it was a coincidence he had to take a work trip to Denver to meet with the rest of his team there the same week he was traveling to attend a GLocal Collective conference in Chicago. Topgolf was something new Norm did when he was in Denver. And when he came back from Chicago, he went right to doing worship stuff on Sunday and then meetings as a part of the Bay Area GLocal planning team.

There were a few celebrations this month. We kicked it off with a friend’s 8th birthday party, headed out to San Francisco on a rainy, rainy evening for a retirement party of our dear mentor pastor friend, and ended it with a farewell lunch for our wonderful children’s ministry director who has loved on our girls since before they could walk and another friend’s birthday party at Golfland. (Note: Sequence and Monopoly Deal are favorites.)

A few other highlights were:
* an ortho appointment – teeth are getting straight, hooray!
* an eye appointment – people can see, hooray!

*mini-adventure – Hayward 9/11 Memorial

* congregational dinner – love hearing updates on what our church fam is up to in the community (photo cred: Aisea)

* worship team potluck – great food and conversations (photo cred: Kat)

* Simple 7 Challenge – green smoothies FTW!

* Happy Chinese New Year!

* academic tests – stuff of life, sometimes necessary, sometimes not, but love that it’s not something that stresses out my girls like it does me :p
* date night – King of Dumplings was our destination
* random family meal at Denica’s Real Food Kitchen

And there you have it! That’s a glimpse of some things we did in January.