January

Can you believe we are already half way through January?!? Things here are flying by and it's only a matter of time before we are experiencing temperatures in the 70's... oh wait, we're almost hitting that already. Earlier in the week, I was all smiles as we finally had a few 'cold' days of temperatures in the upper 30's. Now, we're expecting mid to high 60's from here on out, and it's only going to get warmer. So, all of you need to schedule your vacations and head down to the tropics of Midland!
As for other news, not a lot has happened. We did add a new member to our family with the purchase of a new plant (okay, not really a huge addition, but it's new to our little house). It's a euphorbia dwarf apache red (I call it our cute little pink cactus plant). Basically, it's a plant that I can't kill :) I went to the greenhouse in search of something 'a little Texan,' and when I told the guy that I had a black thumb (instead of a green thumb), he suggested this plant. Of course, I have done nothing to it and let Phil do the work of watering and pruning it! It pays to marry the son of a farmer :)
School started two weeks ago, and thankfully (knock on wood), I have not caught any more viruses. It's been a hectic few days, but this week will be a 4 day week, as the kids have tomorrow off. Then Tuesday, we have an early release since President Bush will be flying in after the inauguration. So, this week should go by quickly. But then it's all 5-day weeks until spring break in March (goodness, what will I do when I have to have a real job with 5-day work weeks and no breaks during summer or winter?!?) I've been staying busy with morning exercise classes at the YMCA. I love the variety of the group classes and I have fallen in love with the Zumba class. It's an hour long aerobic class with a lot of latina-style dancing and moves (basically, we shake our hips a lot and dance to salsa-like music). There are about 50-60 women in the class and it's a lot of fun. Other mornings, I am doing spin classes, Body Pump (strength training) and random cardio sessions. This is all preparation for the Olympic distance triathlon that I am planning on doing in April. Goodness gracious!
Phil has been busy at work planning for President Bush's arrival (which means talking to Secret Service and increasing security), as well as planning for their yearly disaster drill (coming up in June). The disaster drill requires a lot of preparation, which involves the majority of the City operations, so a lot of thought has to go into it. When he's home, he spends his spare time playing his new video games and watching the football play-offs.
We were both very excited last weekend when we were able to see the UND vs. UofM hockey games. A co-worker of Phil's also went to UND and is a huge hockey fan, so he ordered the games on his TV and we went over to watch UND cream the U (sorry Minnesota fans)! We both realized how much we miss good hockey, so I think when it comes time to move, that may have some ranking in our options!