January

Well, January is over, and it pretty much lived up to the title of this blog--Life in the Slow Lane.  It was a pretty quiet month here on Evergreen Court---no visits from kids and grandkids, no long trips, not a whole lot of excitement.  But somehow we managed to keep fairly busy and the month went by quite quickly.

We did make one trip down to Chicago on the 3rd. We stopped first at Abby's apartment and had a little visit with her and her friends, Ashly and Lauren.  Ben also stopped by for a a few minutes.  I delivered some olie bollen and other treats to them.  We then went on to spend some time with Roger and Sheryl.  We had a wonderful, relaxing day with them.  Sheryl humored  me and got a puzzle out, which kept me occupied for the whole afternoon (while visiting, of course.)  We got to spend a little time with Anna, Will and Charlie, who came over for dinner and a sleep-over.  We hadn't seen them for a long time, so that was a treat. We also talked quite a bit with Roger and Sheryl about taking a little trip together in the fall, when they will both be retired as well.

Dad has added a couple of new activities to his schedule.  He is doing some work for Dordt (yes, Dordt---can you believe it?) and is supervising a girl who is doing her student teaching in the Milwaukee area.  So he has made a few visits to her school, to meet with her and to observe her teaching. He has also started volunteering at Cross Trainers, which is the Christian School that meets at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission.  He goes two mornings a week, and tutors kids one-on-one in reading and math.  He is really enjoying that!  He has also been going with me to help out in the nursery during MOPS at our church, if he isn't busy with one of his other activities.

And we continue to enjoy our time with little Erin Dooyema who I take care of two days a week.  She and Dad have become quite good buddies.  In fact, her Grandma may be a bit jealous because last Sunday Dad got bigger smiles from her at church than her Grandma did! We think she might be starting to say "Bob," but it might be "ball" or "book."

We've also been attending some basketball games to see the Jeninga kids play.  Maddy plays at Brookfield Christian and James is on the JV at Milwaukee Lutheran. 

Panera continues to be a big part of our Fridays.  A group of senior citizens from our church meets there for coffee on Friday mornings, and we usually go for that.  I sometimes have to miss that if it's a day when I have Erin.  And the group has been getting smaller and smaller as more and more of the people had to Florda. And then Friday evenings we are there again for dinner with the Brassers.  The last two Fridays, though, we've gone to see James play basketball instead.  His games are at 5:45, so then we have gone somewhere closer to his school after the game.
 
I've been doing a lot of puzzling. I started out with the one that Abby gave me for Christmas, and since then I've done 4 others. As you all probably know, this is definitely MY project--Dad pretty much considers it a waste of time. I kind of figure that if I do it while I watch TV in the evening, my two time-wasting activities kind of cancel each other out.  I will probably start another one this evening while Dad watches the Super Bowl and I watch the commercials.

We've been having kind of a strange winter, weather-wise.  We've had a couple of cold spells, but also a couple of stretches with unusually warm temperatures.  I think last week we had 60+ degrees and then two days later it was below zero, with the wind chill. We also have not had very much snow---we've gotten just a few inches at a time, and of course with that 60 degree weather we lost what we had then.  We now have maybe 3 to 4 inches on the ground.

February looks to be a busier month. We actually started it out with another drive to Chicago yesterday. We went down to have lunch with Ben and Abby to celebrate Ben's birthday a bit early.  Then we're flying to CA this Tuesday and will be back on Wed. the 13th.  And then on the 16th we'll be going to Iowa for the week-end to celebrate Jeremiah's 3rd birthday.  I sure hope the weather doesn't interfere with any of these plans! 

So....no pictures to accompany this post. I'm sure there will be pictures in the next couple of posts.