January Photos

January has come and gone, and what a strange, strange month it was.

We had an extra long Christmas vacation because of the way the weekends and holidays fell this year, but also because of SNOW!  Lots of snow.  We went back to school 2 days late and hardly had a full school day in January.  Lots of snow days and lots of 2 hour delays.  

While I don't love having to miss our second week of Spring Break because of it, it certainly made for a much more relaxing January in Casa Boatwright.

We played a lot of games (Thomas's favorite thing to do), we had lots of free time and movie watching time (Brennan's favorite thing), and we generally hung out a lot together.  No complaints from me.

Brennan had his friend Vivek over one day.  They are both math geniuses.

Had some fun with fireworks one night.

Watched lots of football of course

(David's showing them the Bowl Schedule)

Since my Y'all Come Eat blog is in flux because I lost the domain name, I'll just show you the potatoes we made here.  Saw this on Barefoot Contessa.  They were delicious.

Cut a little of the bottom off a potato so it stays flat.

Slice the potatoes almost all the way to the bottom.

Season with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper.

Bake in a 400* oven for 20 minutes or so.

Finished product - really tasty!

I spend a lot of time with this guy.  I think we'd just dropped Thomas off at youth group.

Speaking of Thomas - he's very, very active with our church youth.

Here he is in a play last Sunday.  He also sings in the youth choir, plays trumpet in the youth brass ensemble, and is looking forward to his 9!!!! day mission trip to a Native American reservation in South Dakota this June.  You can imagine my mix of pride and dread about that trip.

Thomas is leading Hot Meals for the youth at our church this quarter as his Service Learning Project for school.

He led this night, and works every Friday night at our church.  The adult coordinator said she couldn't believe what a great work ethic he has.  I love it.

I took the boys to my evening book club Thursday.  They loved the food, trivia, and of course they got to read (Thomas) and play on his iPhone (Brennan), so life was good.

The Litwits

The most unusual part about our January is David's absence!  He's spent 3 weeks total in Germany this month, helping build a new plant.  He's outside of Frankfurt, but got to travel to Wurzburg over the weekend that he was gone.  He gets home tonight and I can't wait!  2 weeks this time was a long time.  FaceTime and daily calls and emails help though.

Some of David's photos

The plant

The city where he is staying

And his sightseeing trip with colleagues to Wurzburg

It's been a great month.  Oh wait - you probably want to see the snow.

Just one of the many snowfalls we've had in the last 2 months.

Thought I'd better start David's Acura so took it to get the boys from school one day.  Couldn't get back into the garage because of the driveway hill, curve, and a thick sheet of ice.  Neighbors helped.  Phew.