So we were back into our usual routine at the start of a New Year last week. I did not realize that for most of the world, the 1st Monday of January was a Holiday. Not for Scott and I. Scott had to go to school as our county was  the only one  in the state that did not give the kids the day off and I went to work. Tom and Allison enjoyed their day off.  Now we have Allison at home on Winter Break which is a treat!  It is so nice to have someone around helping with dinner, dishes, running errands, picking up Scott from school and most importantly, keeping Cookie company during the day and taking her for walks! I even took Allison to my swim aerobics class on Friday morning. She is trying to keep up her with her fitness program in preparation for Spring Ultimate Frisbee. And with that, she has scheduled multiple medical exams to make sure she is on top of things. So she has spent her time off running around to different medical offices. However, we decided this past weekend would be a good time to meet her boyfriend's family. We invited Tyler and his parents, along with his college age sister over to the house for dinner on Saturday night.

I dragged Allison off to the store to shop for groceries on Friday, and Saturday was cleaning and prep day. Tom had already taken down our Christmas lights outside the house, but I asked him to leave the holiday decorations up inside the house one more weekend for our company. Although it was quite chilly outside, with 1-2 inches of snow that morning, we still decided to grill steaks. Dinner turned out well and we really enjoyed chatting with Tyler's family. His parents live near Towson, north of Baltimore and are originally from Maryland. His Dad works in Hydraulics and his Mom is the East Coast Rep. for Scholastic Book Sales in the school systems. Tyler's sister is attending college in Pennsylvania for Business school studying Finance. His older brother lives in Phoenix. We had a wonderful evening and I think they especially enjoyed Cookie and Pika since they are pet people too. Just wish I could have had Cookie's grooming done before the visit. She was looking a bit shaggy, but I dropped her off on Sunday for a Mid Winter trim. She looks so much better now.  Tyler also just moved two large twin black cats into his apartment and his family has a dog and cat also. They are music people too-Tyler originally was a music major and plays guitar and used to sing in the choir in high school.  His sister plays piano and sings in an Acopella group at her college.  They often travel up to Pennsylvania to hear her sing. It was nice to have them all over. Tyler is busy working, so Allison doesn't get to spend too much time visiting(or vice versa) on her Winter Break.

Allison and I did take some time off to go see the new movie "Hidden Figures". Allison was actually interested in seeing the movie and I was coming along for the popcorn. Turns out we both really loved the movie. It involves the black women working for NASA during the start of the space program in the 1960s as Computers. They were the ones(called Computers) that assisted with all the computations by hand for the space flights until the IBMs were set up. And it turns out one of the ladies ended up running the computers. So the history was interesting and the story line was great, especially since it takes place at NASA in Langley, VA.  Meanwhile, Scott was back to his Boy Scout meetings, work schedule with new training sessions and his Robotics Team. Tom is also busy with his new online class and is actually enjoying this term. There is a lot more interaction with the professor and classmates.

Besides taking Cookie to the groomer, I spent Sunday afternoon visiting with Mom. We were busy going through all her jewelry and putting away some summer clothes at her apt to make room for all her new winter clothes.

We also start the New Year with a Happy Birthday to Mom Seitz!