Two Lost Posts

I was going through my pictures and realized I had 2 old posts that I never published.  I didn't want to forget them, more for me than anyone, since I consider this blog a diary of our lives.  The first was from a fun night we spent with friends on New Years Day.  A friend of Pete's from work, Bob and his wife, invited us to their house for pizza and board games.  Well, heck, I love board games, so we thought that sounded like a great idea!  Made even more so when we found out they also invited our dear friends, the Thirys!

Now, Bob and his wife Karen only have one daughter.  She's an 8th grader and super-sweet.  I was a little nervous knowing that the rest of our 3 and the Thiry 4 would be invading their house, but they handled the craziness well. :-)  Noah stuck to playing Minecraft on their Xbox most of the night, but that didn't seem to make him bored in any way.  He did stop to play a little Apples to Apples and even a little Hide-and-Seek when all the others decided to play, but Minecraft is and will always be his favorite thing.

The older girls all played a game that I can't remember the name of, but they really had fun playing that and it was great to see Madie getting to play with girls her age for a change.

The grown-ups, sans Karen (because she was playing with the kids), played a game of Dungeons and Dragons.  Apparently this isn't like the normal DnD is played, but I officially became a full-fledged nerd after playing it.  Getting told how to play is a little intimidating, because it seems really complicated, but it ended up being really, really fun!

You have to do a lot of strategizing and I swear it literally makes you wiggle your fingers in front of your face as demonstrated by my friend there.  We all did it, except Bob who's a pro. :-)  It was some weird side effect of the game.

We stayed until 10pm when we finally finished our grown-up game and the kids were still going strong.  Karen, on the other hand, was sleepy and probably very ready to have her house back to it's calm regular self. :-)  We really appreciated their hospitality and for handling all of our children in the great way that they did, especially when all 8 of them decided to play hide-and-seek all over their house!!  Oh boy.

The second lost post was from WAY back in early December when Noah and Livie had their Christmas concert.  I didn't want to lose this post, because this was Noah's last year to perform.  Next year he'll move up to the 6th grade choir and band, should he choose to continue doing it (and I hope he will!).

Noah started taking band this year and has had a lot of fun with it.  He chose to play the trumpet - after his grandpa and mom before him.  Look how cute he is with his fellow band geeks!

The rest of the classes finally started filing in as well, so I ran up and snapped this quick shot of Livie as her class arrived.  We were very excited to be in the big gym, because it was re-opened just a week or so earlier after the devastating flood hit it back in April.  It looks amazing now and it was great to see so many people turn out to see their kids and the new gym all at the same time.

Livie's group (aka the entire 2nd grade) sang some really, really cute songs and did a great job with the motions and everything. :-)

Noah's group (aka the whole 5th grade) also did a great job!  They got to sing a few songs and then finished by singing a dance song while some of the kids performed a dance together.  Who, do you ask, performed in the dance?  Why, Noah himself!

He even danced with a girl!!  It was so stinkin' cute too!  Madie did it when she was in 5th grade, so I was soooo excited that Noah got to do it too.  And, you know what, his dance moves aren't too shabby!

I've uploaded a video of it, so hopefully it'll work for you. :-)  So, those are my two lost posts.  I do believe I can finally start posting about our January going-ons now.  Though, with school just now back in session after our recent snowfall and frigid temps (-40 to -50 wind chills) AND my recent kidney infection that threw me for a loop, there hasn't really been anything special to talk about.  But, at least now when there is, I'll be ready to tell you about it. :-)