Happy Valentine's Day!
Our usual tradition is to make and decorate sugar cookies with friends. However, our current regular homeschool playdate friends have crazy food allergies. It just wasn't worth risking their lives! Instead we did a last minute half batch that Lion and Bug decorated and delivered to a few neighborhood friends--keeping a few for ourselves, of course. Yum!

Great Aloha Run
Lion and Daddy ran her first big race--both in distance (8.2mi, farther than she's ever run before) and in participation (11,482 runners/walkers). She LOVED it--the endless stream of people to pass, the high school bands playing along the route, the soldiers and sailors calling cadence, and especially winning her age group of 101 five-to-nine-year-old females by about 8 minutes (she was also 961st overall, and 188th female)! And this with Daddy slowing her down, so she wouldn't burn out. The route passed a block from our house, so Monkey, Bug and I went out to wave as she and Daddy passed by. She looked like one happy camper! Bug commented, "It's like a parade!...A really sweaty parade."

Belt Test!
Our taekwondo school finally had another belt test. The girls were hoping they'd be allowed to skip a belt, since they worked really hard and actually know the form for the next belt up already (really their goal was to break out of the rambunctious crowd they've been stuck with). No such luck. They all passed the test with flying colors, of course, and will be awarded their purple belts.

Silver Lining
Daddy had to travel for several weeks recently. Much as we missed him, we took advantage of his absence by enjoying things like food he doesn't like (asparagus, onigiri, and afternoon tea for dinner, etc.), or simply in locations he doesn't like (PB&J with friends at the beach) and movies he won't watch (ALL the princess movies!). Since he was gone, they also had an intermission in their evening literature with Daddy (currently Call of the Wild), and we read vast quantities of our current read aloud series (we're now in book 12 of the Series of Unfortunate Events). But now he's back! Hooray!

[I apparently wrote this a month ago, and forget to hit publish! Oops.]

Happy New Year!
We're pretty low-key partyers: New Year's Eve in our house involves finger foods while completing a massive puzzle, followed by more food and watching a movie til midnight. Here in Hawaii as midnight approaches we head outside to see a few fireworks before heading to bed. (Cultural note: New Years is a huge holiday here. I think more random strangers wished me happy New Year than they did merry Christmas. Also fireworks are illegal for private citizens. However, just YouTube something like "Oahu new years fireworks." It's crazy. Fireworks for hours! Somebody's got a serious smuggling operation going.)

This year's puzzle was a 1500 piece one that featured
US (and a few Canadian) landmarks. It was fun to see
just how many we've been to!

Back to the Routine
Since we just finished up our longest break from lessons (we take multiple small breaks throughout the year rather than taking a summer break), the girls' commented that January feels more like the beginning of a new school year than August/September does. For the most part, nothing much has changed academically for us--we're still happily rolling with the subjects/programs we were doing in the fall. But here's a few points of interest:

• The girls finished our cursive curriculum, so I talked with them to decide how each girl wanted to continue practicing (incorporating it into their other lessons or doing copywork). Lion also decided she has a few problem letters in her print handwriting that she's asked my help with.
• They've all been interested in hair styling and clothes designing lately. Lion and Bug have been asking me for more elaborate styles in their own hair, but all three girls have been putting together hair and outfits for their 18" dolls (think off-brand American Girl dolls). Bug and I even found some simple free downloadable patterns she can do with her sewing machine, and Monkey has asked to learn how to use it too.
• Lion and Bug at least have decided they're serious about their USATF events, and asked Daddy to help them prep for the season that begins in April. Lion is a distance runner (of course). She's training for her first 10k by running a total of at least 9 miles per week. She has a mile-long route through our neighborhood she can run solo during the week, then Daddy takes her for a 5 or 6 mile run on the weekend. Bug, our thrower, wanted to do strength training before the season starts, since they don't do that as part of track practice. Daddy came up with a body weight only routine for her to do 2 or 3 times a week. Meanwhile, during her sister's workout times, Monkey has been going for long bike rides.