Happy (late) Holidays!
These are some of the last pictures I took in 2005. Andrew celebrated his 40th birthday (Cora & I made the cake - she picked the colors) with lots of candles. On a very cold, wet day the girls went outside to play then got warm inside the bike trailer in the garage. Andrew put a little ceramic heater in the back, they had a snack of warm toast, with the cover closed to keep in the heat (I opened it up to take their picture).
We had a very nice, quiet, cozy Christmas. The girls had fun opening and playing with presents and we all enjoyed sitting by the fire and staying home. On one of the first days of the new year, I took this picture. I had gone shopping somewhere and this is the sight I returned to; I drove up and there they were in the garage with the door open, all riding their exercise bikes! Andrew had set their bikes up on wood so that they wouldn't go anywhere and they were all pedaling furiously!I don't know where the time goes, here it is February already. The holidays came and went much too quickly, of course I never got my Christmas cards in the mail, and I have lots to catch up on. I have a nice bunch of pictures and things to write about from January. I've been consumed lately with renewing my teaching credential, applying to grad school, and observing and deciding on kindergarten programs for Cora. In fact just today I registered Cora for kindergarten! Yikes! What a process - it took about an hour! We still don't know where she will end up for kindergarten, I registered her at the neighborhood school because that's the procedure, but we're also applying for some alternative programs within the public school district. There are some great charter schools and programs here in Chico (all part of our public schools) and it's really hard to decide. I've been checking out 3 particular schools to try to get a feel for what they are like, all 3 happen to be K-8 so I want to get the whole picture, not just kindergarten. They choose students by lottery after siblings are accepted, so we won't have to go through this all over again with Olivia. But we have to wait and see if Cora gets in, and since parents often enter more than one lottery, we might not know for a while, even though the lotteries are held this month. I want to have a clear sense of what our first choice is before we have to decide. So if anyone has any advice for me, feel free to let me know. One thing I'm pretty sure of, Cora will probably love school.
