Giving Thanks

1. My dad's quadruple bypass surgery went smoothly last Wednesday.  He left the ICU and was transferred to another room in the hospital on Thursday, and today he came back home!

2. I was in a car accident on January 17. It shook me up. It had been 17 years since my last accident. I was going straight through an intersection, and a woman turned left into our van. When I realized she was doing this, I came to a complete stop in the middle of the intersection and honked the horn. This got her attention, and she tried to come to a stop, but part of her SUV hit the driver's door of our van. She decided to pay for the repair bill herself instead of going through her insurance. She asked me to get two estimates. I got one last Monday at a body shop one mile from our house, and I got a second quote last Wednesday in Milton after Oliver's dentist appointment. The one closer to our house was almost $500 cheaper, so naturally she picked that one. I received the $1200 check from her in the mail on Saturday.  I'm thankful that no one was injured, that the woman

has paid for the repairs, and that the accident wasn't any worse than it was. Here's to hoping I go at least 17 years without another accident. I'd prefer to never be in another accident as long as I live! The van is scheduled to be dropped off at the body shop on February 3, and I was told it will take five days to fix it. Typically the kids and I stay home all day on Monday, but it seems we'll be home for five days, with the exception of Wednesday night. I assume the kids will miss their basketball practices, art class, chorus, Bible quizzing, and ice skating lessons next week, but I think Paul can come home on Wednesday night by 6:15 so that the boys can go to AWANA and Nadia and I can attend part of choir rehearsal (me) and middle school youth (her).

3. The kids and I enjoyed seeing the new Maleficent 2 on DVD through a free rental from Redbox on January 17.

4. We got more snow on January 18, and I was thankful that Paul got home safely from work that afternoon. It took him 30 minutes longer than usual. I was

also thankful that the boys' basketball games were cancelled that day. I really, really don't like driving in the snow and driving in the snow one day after being in a car accident was nerve wracking for me, but we got home safely after Nadia's basketball game.

5. On January 19 Nadia decided to attend the youth group meeting (for grades 6-12) at First Baptist where they play basketball instead of the Bible study at the Methodist church (for grades 4-8). She's attended the Middle at the Methodist church for 1.5 years. The Methodist church is 4 minutes from our house whereas the Baptist church is 13 minutes from our house. I agreed to let her switch if Paul was willing to do one of the trips. He agreed to drop her off at 6:00 each Sunday night if I pick her up at 8:00. She knows a few of the kids in that youth group because they attend our church and/or the Christian School. There are a lot more kids in that youth group than the Middle, and the group regularly schedules social events, mission trips, and service projects. She wanted to

join their laser tag event on January 21, but she had basketball practice that night. She talked about things like a progressive dinner and such, which reminded me of my days in the youth group in Maryland. I doubt she'll return to the Methodist church aside from VBS, but she's looking forward to continuing to participate in the youth group at our church and also at First Baptist. She was invited to three different Super Bowl parties - one at each church! She decided to go to the one at our church.

6. We celebrated Ian's 6th spiritual birthday on January 20! He chose to have dinner at Bonanza, and we were able to use the gift card my Dad gave us for Christmas. it cost a little less than $25 for the five of us to have dinner, which included drinks for everyone except me. It's certainly cheaper to eat there compared to most sit down restaurants, especially considering it's a buffet that includes dessert, which we never get at sit down restaurants. We had donuts for breakfast on January 24 also in honor of his birthday. I let him pick

something out at the bookstore at our church, but the manager told us all the kids' books will be on sale 25% off in February so he's waiting until then to pick out his gift from his parents and also from my Dad.

7. Oliver had two teeth pulled at the dentist last Wednesday. He was a trooper! The teeth still had their full roots so there was quite a bit of bleeding. Because the teeth came out in a much more painful way than usual, the tooth fairy gave him $10 and Grandma gave him $3. He used his money to buy a pretzel at the basketball game on Saturday and ordered a Paw Patrol toy on Amazon.

8. Nadia has memorized the first two chapters of Hebrews and is half way through chapter three. Her goal is to memorize all of Hebrews, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter by the middle of June. Next year she'll be memorizing the book of Matthew. Ian isn't too sure about joining her in this in September 2021, but I am expecting both of them to memorize the books of Romans and James during the 2021-22 school year. Memorizing comes VERY

easily for Ian so I sure it won't feel as daunting once he actually starts working on it.

9. The kids have enjoyed their last two computer hardware classes. Their last class will be this Friday, which will be an introduction to programming. The second class was about putting together a desktop computer. They each had to connect the cords for the keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc. The third class was about setting up a network. The kids set up a network that included all of their desktops.

10. Paul usually works six days a week, but he took a day off this past Saturday to attend the kids' basketball games. Ian's was the most exciting as he stole the ball at least four times. The first game was at 9:00 and the last game started at 2:00. Oliver and Paul weren't able to come home in the middle. Ian, Nadia, and I were home for about 90 minutes in between Nadia's game and Oliver's game. I'm thankful this is the last year of having three basketball games on Saturdays. At the most we'll have two games next year, and I'm really

questioning whether Oliver should continue to play basketball. Nadia helped out in the concession stand from 12:00-3:00, which she greatly preferred to watching the games.

11. Oliver has been enjoying reading Mouse and Mole books from the library as well as a Bible reader since he finished Level 4 of All About Reading in December. Ian has been reading FAR more than usual this month. Usually he'll only read if it will earn him a turn on the Wii or Switch, but he's actually been doing some reading "just for fun" WOOHOO! His favorite author these days is Nathan Hale, and Nadia's favorite is Heather Vogel Frederick. I'm grateful all three kids like to read!

12. We started a new Spanish curriculum today. We had not really done much with sign language in the fall. We own the Rosetta Stone cds for Spanish, and maybe we'll go back to those at some point, but today we started using Excelerate Spanish, which I bought on eBay. I was looking for something all three kids could

do together. Hopefully this will work well for us. Things were going along smoothly in our homeschooling so I thought it was time to add another subject. Nadia wants to go on a mission trip to Guatemala, which means it would be very helpful for her to know more Spanish than she knows from her past use of Duolingo and Rosetta Stone.

13. Paul finished his repairs in the kids' bathroom on Wednesday night, and Nadia and I had showers in our house for the first time in months on Thursday. We had gone almost a month without taking a shower as our last shower had been on Christmas Day at Paul's parents' house. When he started taking out the silicone the end of September, I had no idea it would take almost four months for him to complete the project. I'm very thankful to be able to take showers again. I'd be thrilled to never take another bath the rest of my life. Because we were allowed to use it for a little bit at the end of October, I am still nervous that the project isn't actually complete, but I'm assuming as more time passes I will become convinced that being able to take a shower isn't just a temporary situation. In addition to being able to take showers, it means that things from that bathroom which had been stored in our master bedroom, our bathroom, and the half bathroom have now been returned to their rightful places, which means less clutter in the other rooms, which I greatly appreciate. Maybe some day there won't need to be a circular saw in my closet? That will be removed whenever Paul finishes the master bathroom project.

14. Last week we received junior ranger badges in the mail from two different national parks. Some parks allow you to complete the booklets from home! They've completed 6 or 7 so far this month! They've almost completed 30 altogether, and my current goal is for them to each earn 150 Junior Ranger badges.