Into the New Year

After some delay due to the extreme cold we are now back into the routine and the holidays seem a long, long time ago.

ARCTIC BLAST. The weather folks didn't miss the mark with the cold temperatures last week. An arctic low shifted south allowing it to blast it's frigid winds all across the US. We woke up to a low of 4° Monday morning and the temperature never got above 7°. Nate looked at the thermometer and asked what 4° felt like and I told him to go out and find out for himself. He wasn't out long. I noticed the next morning the temp had dropped to 0° overnight. Recently we have had highs in the 50s but temps are dropping again.

BACK TO SCHOOL. Well, we're back to school even though students got an unexpected two day extension to their break thanks to icy road conditions around Greenbrier and Ridgetop. The boys' schedules are the same but Jenna has a new set of classes for the spring semester: English II, Geometry, Diagnostic Medicine, and Spanish II.

BASKETBALL, PART 2. Ben's basketball season may be over, but Nate's is just getting cranked up. He played his first game Saturday. He confessed to me that he was a little nervous before the game but that certainly didn't last too long. He proved himself to be the king of rebounds. Of course, when you are a head taller than most everyone out on the court how can you not rebound. He also scored quite a few goals. He's been very excited about it since his game.

DIGGING A HOLE. We have a new basketball goal. Some time before Christmas Mr. Jimmie asked me if we wanted his goal and I said, "Sure, if no one in your family wants it." They didn't so the day before we left for Georgia Jeff Garst went over there with his tractor and pulled the goal up out of the ground and dropped it off at our house. We didn't have a hole ready to receive it so it is laying in the back yard.

They boys asked me how we were going to set the goal up I handed them a set of post hole diggers. When Jeff pulled it up all the concrete it was set in the ground with came with it so they have a large hole to dig. They were eager to get started when we got back from Georgia but the ground was frozen putting a stop to that idea (actually I said to the boys, "Knock yourself out."). The ground had thawed out by last weekend and I was impressed with how much work the boys did to get a hole ready for their goal. Hopefully we'll have it up before too long.

Joe