Competition!

The day before Owen's birthday, Paige and I traveled to Columbus for her to perform her solo in a competition. Like any activity these days, it was a lot different than normal! A very limited number of people were allowed in, hardly any people were allowed to be in the audience except for judges teachers and parents whose kids were about to go on. Paige was nervous but so excited to get out on a stage. The first competition didn't have a stage so it's interesting that she gets to do these small steps as the year goes on. She did amazing and brought tears to my eyes like always! We headed home and later that night there was a livestream where they announced the awards. Paige got 4th and scored High Gold!!

Attempting to stretch in the car...? We got there early and but go in until 45 minutes before her solo time.

A lot of Paige's friends either couldn't go to this competition or weren't there at the same time so Paige was glad to see Siannah!

Ready to perform!

Paige ran into her buddy, Maeve, when we were walking to our car and Maeve was waiting to go in!

 

Owen's Birthday!

Owen's birthday was on a Sunday so he had all day to celebrate! Even though we weren't having a party with guests we decided to still surprise him with a theme and we chose "The Office," one of his favorite tv shows! If you don't know the show, it just looked like we did a really bad job decorating but we took it straight from an episode! All of our activities involved food! Owen requested doughnuts for breakfast so that's how we started the day. We had a nacho table for a late lunch and then blizzards for his birthday dessert! Other activities included a fun zoom call with family, lots of video games, and a race between Owen and Paige to see who could find the most "Office" themed cupcake toppers that Pat and I had placed around the house. They tied!

Breakfast of Champions!

Easiest decorations ever!

Nacho table! We couldn't finish it all!

Owen got a hoverboard this year and we're all enjoying it. Except for Griffin! 

Our #4 had a hole in it but a droopy balloon was kind of perfect with our decorations

Getting ready to blow out the candle on his blizzard, while riding his hoverboard:)

 

14!!!

Owen is 14! 

This time next year he will be halfway through his first year of high school! How is that even possible?!?!

Owen and Griffin

 

Dinner!

I didn't take a good picture of this dinner (Sausage, Potato & Broccoli Sheet Pan) because I wasn't expecting it to be a huge hit. In fact, Paige walked in from dance while it was in the oven and announced she would not be eating it at all. Ha! We reminded her that's not how dinner works and luckily it was super good! Pat asked a few times before dinner was even over if we could have it again soon. We made a few changes- regular potatoes instead of red, red pepper and asiago chicken sausage, 1/8 cup soy sauce instead of coconut aminos, and we left out the onion powder. 

 

Kerchiefs!

I already posted a picture of the green kerchief I made for Griffin but after that success we went a little crazy. We thought he needed a way to support all of the Cleveland sports teams (and Ohio State although that kerchief is currently missing...) so we picked up some fabric and I made four more! Paige even got in on the fun and made one with bees on it. She did a great job using the sewing machine! 

 

Hike Take 2

Because we didn't get much of a hike in on the 1st we gave it another shot on the 2nd! We went to one of the kids favorite places where you can make your own path through the woods and down to the water. The water was very high and very fast, we compared it to our white-water rafting trip only there were parts of this river I wouldn't have been willing to raft on! There were a lot of trees down too and some that were so recently split you could smell the wood.

 

New Year's Hike

So normally this would be called our New Year's DAY hike but because of excessive rain we didn't get to go until almost 6pm and it was pretty dark! Because of that, this was less of a hike and more of a walk but if we learned nothing else in 2020...we learned to adjust our expectations:)

 

New Year's Eve!

We usually bring in the New Year at home together so the pandemic wasn't going to affect our evening too much but when another family asked if we wanted to go bowling earlier in the day we decided to go for it and hope that it wasn't crowded. We were so happy to see that groups were spaced out lanes apart and we were all the way at the end so we didn't have to be near anyone besides the people we came with! We all had fun and all found out we aren't as good at bowling as we thought:)

Later on in the evening we ordered some of the best Chinese takeout I can remember having and worked on resolutions. The rest of the night was filled with a movie (Soul, so good!), Cards Against Humanity Family Edition, video games and ice cream!

Waiting to bowl

Pat's form was impressive

One side of the table...

...And the other

Working on resolutions

We played some sort of Call of Duty zombie game

Cards Against Humanity...

...This game always makes us laugh!

Pat got sent outside as per tradition

Family selfie