February is here!  Time to look back through January and remember my favorite things, events, and activities!  January typically is a month that drags by and seems to last forever to me, but this January went by fairly quickly.

FAVORITE #1

Cara, Paul, and the girls gave us this calendar for Christmas, and I hung it on the wall just inside our kitchen.  All month long, every time I made my way through that entry into the kitchen, this picture warmed my heart and made me smile inside.

 

FAVORITE #2

I took this picture on January 8th.  The daffodils were ALREADY making their presence known.

Back in September, I dug a bunch of them up and took them to Louisiana for Cara to plant in her yard.  It made me happy when she told me near the end of January that hers, too, were beginning to emerge! 😁

 

FAVORITE #3

At the beginning of the second week of January, I had my regular appointment with my hairdresser.  I decided to get my bangs back!

A decision I’ve been glad I made.

 

FAVORITE #4

On the 17th, Big Eagle and I went to the stock show in Fort Worth.  We hadn’t been in four years, so we decided it was time to check it out again.  In the past, we’ve always gone on the weekend, because Big Eagle was working during the week.  But now that he’s retired, we were able to go on a weekday.  And the day we went, the high temp for the day was in the low 80’s.  MUCH nicer than if we’d have gone THIS week!

We did some shopping in here.  More like browsing I should say, since we didn’t actually buy anything.  Always a lot of interesting and fun stuff to look at, though.  Interesting to note that they had a big area at the end of one of the aisles with nothing but merchandise related to Yellowstone (the series).

We had watched the horse reining classes before lunch, and after lunch we decided to take in the dairy cattle show.

First the entrants maneuvered their cows single file past the judges.  I was impressed by that little girl second from the right!  That cow was so much bigger than her, and she had to work to get it to go where she needed it to go!  Then the judges had them stand in a row side by side (below) while they looked them over to make their final decisions.

After that, we were ready to head home.  When we left the dairy cattle show, on our way to where we had parked, we walked through the area behind that arena.  It was the area where the cows were being kept.

I saw this guy and thought, “Wow!  Look at those horns!”

But then we walked by THIS one!  His horns were even bigger!

But as we reached the end of the aisle and turned the corner to head toward the exit, we saw THIS fella!  He wins my award for the biggest and fanciest horns!

Quite an experience, the stock show.  Always a good time!

 

FAVORITE #5

On Friday, the 20th, we packed up and headed to Louisiana to see Cara, Paul, and the girls for the weekend.  Helen was performing in the middle school honor band for the district, and we wanted to be there for that.

Friday night, Paul took this picture with Helen’s Polaroid of us and the girls in the bean bag.

The next day, we headed to Hammond for the concert.  Our seats were really high up, so it was hard to get good pictures, but if we had been much lower, it would have been harder to see our girl.

But there she is!  Right in the center in the light green shirt!

Here’s a closer shot:

They sounded great!  So proud of them!

We went to Lee’s Diner afterwards for lunch.  When we were done with our various entrees, we all shared this delectable dessert!

The weekend went by fast, but it was so much fun!  Always love spending time with family!

 

FAVORITE #6

Our son Danny is back in Antarctica right now leading expeditions on the Scenic Eclipse.  While we were at Cara’s, he sent this picture in a text.  It shows him at the helm of a zodiac, and there is a humpback whale right at the side of it!

Now understand, they don’t drive the zodiacs right up to the whales.  It’s actually illegal for them to do that.  But they do stop a distance away from the whales when they see them, and if the whale swims to you, that is allowed.  So that’s what happened in this instance.  What an amazing sight!

 

FAVORITE #7

At some point during the month, I got the itch to make so homemade bread.  It had been YEARS and YEARS since I’d made any kind of homemade bread.  I found an easy recipe for French bread, and gave it a go!

 

I love the magic of yeast! 😮

 

 

And the bread was a success!  Crunchy on the outside, and soft on the inside…yum!

 

 

FAVORITE #8

On the 26th, the Orangetheory workout was one they call the Inferno.  It’s a signature workout, so you can record your result, and work toward improving.  In this workout, you alternately run or walk on the treadmill and row.  The row distance increases throughout the time period, but the treadmill distance remains the same.  You record the total distance rowed at the end.

The last time I did this workout was in July, and my distance rowed was 3,188 meters.  I was hoping to improve, but it seems like getting PRs gets harder and harder the older I get.  HOWEVER…this time my distance was 3,394 meters!  WHAT!?  Oh, yeah!  An improvement of 206 meters?  I’ll take it!  And not only that, Coach Sydney told me I was first in my age group!  So, yeah…that workout was a favorite!

 

FAVORITE #9

The last Saturday of the month, I was on my way to my workout, and near the end of our street, there were a couple of kids with a little stand set up in front of their house selling Girl Scout cookies!  So after my workout, I swung by the bank to get some cash, and I stopped on the way back down the street and gave them my business.

I got a couple that we haven’t tried before.  Then there are the ones I always have to get: the thin mints and the shortbread.  I wish they had had the peanut butter sandwich ones, but they didn’t.  All but one of these boxes went into the freezer.

 

FAVORITE #10

While I was at my workout that same day, Big Eagle went and got a trailer-load of mushroom compost for the vegetable garden.  He was outside shoveling it into the wheelbarrow and getting it into the garden when I got home.  So after my cup of coffee, I went out and helped him.  It felt good to be out working in the garden again.  We both worked up a pretty good sweat.  Once I raked out the piles of compost to level them over the ground, Big Eagle tilled it all in.

Since he dismantled and rebuilt the garden in the fall, it’s quite a bit smaller this year.  I’ll have to rein in the amount that I plant and maybe plant things closer together.

 

FAVORITE #11

Speaking of the garden, on Monday the 30th, our onions arrived in the mail!  We ordered two bundles last year, and it proved to be too many for us.  So this year, I just ordered one bundle.

I’m pretty sure I posted a picture similar to this one last year.  Ha!

Now these onions aren’t going any where as long as it looks like this outside our front door:

Thankfully, this stuff is slowly melting away as I type these words.  I plan on getting the onions into the ground in a couple of days on Sunday.  That day is predicted to be sunny with a high of 67!  We are SO GLAD to say good-bye to this ice!

January was a good month for us!  Looking forward to what February brings.  Hopefully no more ice!  Big Eagle took a spill on it yesterday, as I was beginning to write this post, and cut open the back of his head.  We spent the next several hours at the ER.  He’s going to be fine, but yeah…we definitely have had enough of ice for this year!

I hope you’re keeping warm wherever you are!  Would love to hear how your year has started off.  So if you’re willing to share, please comment!  And I hope you’re able to enjoy the weekend!