Darr Family Blog » Oh, Hey 2024!

This past week was one of settling back in, celebrating New Years Eve, tucking away the Christmas decorations, going back to school and work, and just easing back into life in general. Paul was still not feeling 100%, so yesterday he went to urgent care and they said he has bronchitis. They gave him a whole host of new meds to take and suggested he take off work tomorrow so that he can give his body a chance to rest and fully recuperate. I eased back into teaching with one day for staff and then a three-day workweek (that was rather nice, actually). I got a new student, which was fun (especially since I knew way ahead of time that she was going to be starting, so I had plenty of time to prepare). Having a three-day week was nice for the kids, too. We were all still on California time, so trying to get back on Texas time was a bit challenging. It’s hard going to bed when it doesn’t feel as late as it is and then getting up when it feels way earlier than it actually is. I think we’re all fully adjusted now, though, so onto the rest of January!

She had an image in her mind of this tube being a soprano saxophone (like a character in one of the Trolls movies, I guess), so she managed to shape the end of it to look more like a mouthpiece. Her imagination has mine beat for sure!

New Year’s Eve was on a Sunday and we had just gotten back from California the day before, so we didn’t really have any big plans. I decided I would wait and see if either kid made it to midnight (which was rather easy, actually, since they were still on California time, so it only felt like ten). They made it, so we tossed on sweatshirts and went out to watch the chaos that is NYE outside of city limits in San Antonio. It was so worth it! There’s a video at the bottom of this post of the show that our street and the streets around us put on. Our next door neighbors even shared some sparklers with the kids, which was super nice.

January 1, 2024…61 degrees, warm sun…beautiful back yard…I love where we live!

While it can be a bit of a downer to tuck away Christmas decorations, I do love my “any time there isn’t a major holiday” decorations. 🙂

Yesterday she wanted to go out, but it was a bit on the chilly side (45ish degrees), so I told her to put on an extra layer. So, yup. Of course I needed to take a picture.

We had a much smaller board up here that was a bulletin board and a white board combined. It fell off the wall and instead of putting it back up, we decided to upgrade to a whiteboard in a different area and this larger bulletin board. It works much better since the other one was really too small for our needs. Abigail was excited to see it go up (she likes to hang up pictures that she draws).

Paul also got more bins for Abigail’s storage shelf and an actual bookcase for her books (before, we were storing the books on her storage shelf, but she needed the room to store her toys, stuffed animals, and other things). I like how organized her room feels now!

Here is the video of fireworks from NYE. The popping started in earnest about 8:30ish, but this is the “finale” which people saved for midnight…y’know, even if I had sent the kids to bed, they probably would not have been able to sleep through this chaos. It was fun to watch, though!