100 Days of Practice

It's fun to see progress when some of your students actually practice.  We did a fun 100 day challenge with a reward at the end.  

 I've also had 2 students complete the piano binder which is always a huge accomplishment.

Chinese New Year

We always love a good Chinese New Year celebration.  It's become a yearly tradition with the Altmans.  Don't let Little Guy's expression fool you.  He ate more that most of us combined.

Cooking Club

Little Lady and BB decided they wanted to participate in Cooking club at school this week.  I'm fairly positive it's because they got to make cinnamon rolls.  They're main complaint was that it moved super slow, and no one knew how to bake.  I told them they should be grateful they have some skills in the kitchen and enjoy the rolls.  We'll see if they want to try it another time.

January Dates

 Little Guy had his date with Daddy.  He chose to go to Snooze for breakfast and then walk around temple grounds.  He even ran into Grandma and Grandpa Thompson on the way into their temple shift.

BB wanted to do mini golf and eat dinner at Chick-in-Waffle.  Dad wanted to try this place, so BB invited him to come along on our whole date.  

I'm not sure if we had more fun playing mini-golf or taking dramatic pictures. 

It was a lot of fun!

Do.Good Stitches

January and February blocks: I really liked piecing the citrus fabrics together while it was snowing outside.

 

Winter Blues

 January sometimes just feels so long and dreary.  To help counteract the blah of January I always keep all of our Christmas cards up for the whole month of January.  It makes me smile every time I walk by it.

Restaurant Week

 I always look forward to this week in January every year.  It's so fun trying new restaurants and spending time with great friends.  

Val and I tried Zero Zero Handmade Pasta.  It's tiny and so good!  The foccachia bread was to die for!  Joel and I had a lunch date at the Plaza at Ocean Prime.  The ambience is fantastic with a great view from the top of the hill, and everything was delicious.

Rebecca and I went to Thai Orchid.  The soup was the show stopper - scrumptious!!  It's called Tom Kha Soup. It has a coconut milk base, and I need more of it in my life.

Melissa and I went to Aqua Penny's.  It's Thai infused seafood, and it was also really good.  The massaman salmon was delightful.

Restaurant Week actually spans 2 weekends, so at the end of it Joel and I went on a date to Piropos.  It's an upscale Argentinian restaurant, and it was definitely my favorite place of the week.  The single best thing I ate the entire experience for the week was this butternut-squash soup.  It doesn't look like much, but let me tell you - it was heaven in a bowl!  We loved everything we ate there including the empanadas.  The ambience is also stellar.  The restaurant is on the 2nd floor, so it overlooks the city.  It was gorgeous and an added bonus to the incredible food.

It's such a fun experience in the middle of dreary winter around here, and I would go back to any of the restaurants we tried.

Special Night

BB attended the temple for the very first time tonight.  It was so absolutely lovely.  Little Man got to perform baptisms for the first time as well since he's now a Priest. He started with Joel.  Joel joked that if Little Man could baptize him then he could baptize anyone. I loved having us all together.  We were just missing Little Guy.