It is cold! It's been in the 30's here, in the morning and up to the 60's in the afternoon but then back down in the evening. I can't warm up. Phil won't let us take long, hot showers so I am drinking lots of hot water, tea and soup. It helps. I played a bunch tennis; clinic, round robins and a match. Ellie had her first soccer game on Monday. I drove out to Fletcher to watch her sit the bench. She was pretty upset. Phil watched her on Wednesday. They won and she got some playing time. My parent's had us over for dinner on Wednesday night to meet one of their Godson's from Miami. He's working to learn more about his recently deceased father who flew with my dad. It was an interesting dinner. I did a 36 hour fast from that night until lunch with my dad on Friday. It wasn't as hard as I was thinking. I'm going to try it once a month. I'm particularly interested in the benefit of the protection from cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's models (since I have some family history). If it can do any prevention, I'd say it's worth it. Here's the article I'm referring to. I played a relatively easy game of tennis with Rebekah on Thursday morning then went to watch Hillbilly Elegy with April. I finished reading The Last Mrs. Parrish, which was so good! I played a round robin with Amanda, Rebekah and Jane on Friday then Dad and I went to adoration. He treated me to lunch at Trent- yay for breaking that fast! We had pizza and watched the 3rd Star Wars on Friday. Ellie went to youth group and spent the night at Cora's. Saturday morning I picked her up with some hot chocolate and she came with us to Abby's First Communion Retreat. She did some crafts and got a behind the scenes tour of the altar. Phil picked up Ellie and took she and Voss to Marly's basketball game. The Nixon kids came over and the adults all went to dinner at TCC. Still hanging on strong with Dryanuary, not as much fun and I am slipping with the sweets so I need to reign that back in this week. The girls served in mass on Sunday and we brought up the gifts. Fr. Luke compared abortion being legal to killing and eagle's egg being illegal. He could have talked about so many great topics for Respect Life Sunday- like illegal immigrants in cages being separated from their children, how to support the poor and marginalized in our society, what we can do for a woman in a situation who feels like aboirtion is her only option, or maybe just help recruit nursery workers for the moms ministry I run in the church- where the only workers I have are NOT church members. So yeah, I was pretty angry. Luckily, my sisters helped talk me down over group text. After breakfast with the Smiths we celebrated Voss' 6th Birthday. I threw it together last minute but it turned out just fine. Two of his friends came with us to Camp Blanding. There were tanks, trucks, planes, helicopters and other army vehicles that the kids could run around and play around. It was perfect! Unfortunately, I forgot the cake on the way out there so we picked it up on the way home and did cake at the house. It was simple and fun. Early bedtime for all. I stayed up to watch One Night in Miami, maybe a little prep for MLK Day. Today, Ellie and I got up and went to lector training with Deacon George after some of Marly's pancakes. We're excited to get on the schedule for March. I did a tennis clinic then took the kids downtown for the MLK parade. We got there for the tail end then rode the skyway. We picked up s'mores stuff. We used our Christmas tree trimmings and had an afternoon fire. It was nice. I made chicken soup for dinner. Another early bedtime to get ready for a cold week of fun!