Of Birthdays, Semesters and Tide Pools (what we've been up to)

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, so much going on in fact that I’ve had little time to write. But I finally have a free minute so I thought I’d share a glimpse of what we’ve been up to.

OK first, not so good. Last Monday my car got rear-ended and while my car is fine (thank you Honda Minivan), my back and neck are not doing so great. So this has been a mandatory call to rest as I have had little choice but to just take it easy.

Though lying on the couch and getting snuggles while I rest is really not so bad . . . .

But moving on. So that was Monday then Tuesday and Wednesday, I had stuff going on around the house but also helped my 8th grader finish up his homeschooling for the end of the first semester. Yes, I know we’ve survived 1/2 of the school year. And it hasn’t even been so terrible. OK, there are some days that are less than fun but overall we’re getting through it. Yay! And then we he got to enjoy a few days off for a semester break.

Thursday was a busy day, I had a meeting in the morning then lunch with a good friend. oh and it was my oldest son’s birthday. Sixteeen! How I can actually have a child who is sixteen is beyond me. But so it goes. Well we had a really nice family celebration. Cake and pizza for dinner.

The Birthday boy

And our usual tradition of everyone at the table going around and saying what they love about the birthday person. Super sweet to hear my 3 year old say he loves that his brother always plays with him. Also, my sweet daughter was the party game committee and created a handmade pin the tail on the donkey game which was a great hit. I think she was the winner as well.

Friday I had already planned was going to be a kid date. I had been busy and in pain so I had not been able to give the little ones a lot of my attention so Friday we went to the San Francisco zoo. And it was a lot of fun, to run around with my 3 and 4 1/2 year olds checking out animals, stopping for snacks and just chatting.

Then on Saturday our church’s women’s ministry has bi-monthly Coffee Talk events with breakfast and a speaker. This time it was Lisa Chan, wife of the amazing pastor and author Francis Chan. And it was a full house. Lisa’s message was SO good. You can read a re-cap of her message here.

And then Sunday. We heard a great message at church and then um, our Niners won their game and are going to the SUPERBOWL!

Finally,on Monday we enjoyed MLK day at the beach because we had been having glorious weather in January. And the kids got to run around and check out fun things in the tidepools.