Here's what has been going on this February!

We started if off with a crazy Super Bowl game!  Naturally we invited our neighbors over for a Super Bowl party(any excuse to clean the house, cook lots of great food and enjoy an evening with our friends). The crowd was small-we opted not to invite the entire neighborhood like we usually do. Only 10 guests this time(including a visiting dog!). I spent the weekend grocery shopping and preparing food. I decided to make a big ham so everyone could have sandwiches if they preferred, along with cheesy potato casserole and broccoli/cauliflower salad. Of course we had lots of chips and dip. And Tom could not go without Buffalo Chicken Dip. On top of all that, the neighbors brought lots of extra appetizers like shrimp and fancy hors d'eovres that I had no idea what I was eating, but it was very good! And you can't have a football game without brownies and chocolate chip cookies(plus I threw in a few chocolate covered Oreo cookies). I think we had it covered on food. Most everyone left early since it looked like the Falcons had the game. But a few doubting Thomases stayed(mine included) with faith that Tom Brady would pull out a win for the Patriots in 8 mins. And it happened. Crazy. I was rooting for the Falcons since they never had a win and Patriots already had 4 Super Bowl wins under their belts. Rather than wear my Patriots shirt(we celebrated a Patriots Super Bowl win when we lived in Boston), I donned my Packers tshirt. Wishful thinking. I was in mourning. We had my Mom over for the game too. We just had to keep an eye on her to make sure she did not give the dogs too many treats!

I started the month of February off with oral surgery. I have been thinking about getting a tooth implant for over 10 years now. The surgery was not covered by Dental insurance and the procedure can cost between $4000 to $9000. I really did not want to spend that much on one tooth! Instead I have been wearing a small bridge that only cost $300. But currently my dental insurance pays for half of the procedure, so I thought it was time. So at the beginning of the month I went in and got started. Currently I just have the post in place(a small screw in my jaw). In 3 months I will go back and get a tooth made and no more bridge! I just had to take antibiotics for a week. And I took the day off work since my face was numb for the whole day. I was not the only one at the dentist this month. Mom Bozyk needs a bit of work done so she got started with a root canal. I tried to get her back to her follow up appointment, but she did not get her antibiotics in time for the treatment. So instead Mom and I enjoyed a lunch outing(on Valentine's Day no less). It was a nice break from work during the day. I also had a chance to drop off her Valentine gift.

Tom spent Valentine's week in Dallas. He is working on a project and actually had to travel out to Dallas the week before to get set up. Instead we celebrated Valentine's Day over the weekend with dinner out to BJs Tavern and a movie. Not sure the John Wicke 2 movie is exactly a Love Story, but it kept our attention(and there was a lot of red). Plus we needed to catch up with Keeanu Reaves since we saw John Wickes 1. And we invested in a new Roomba to clean the floors. The old one wore out its wheel and just spun in circles. We also spent the weekend turning in Mom's cable box. She really doesn't spend time in her apartment watching tv, so we decided to save her $150 bucks a month. I would rather she spent the money going out to lunch or attending the programs at the Senior Center. Plus she usually watches tv in the main living room with the other residents. More fun with a group!

Before the weekend got started, we packed Scott up for a Winter Boy Scout camping trip on Friday afternoon. We let Scott practice freeway driving-1.5 hr drive to Scout camp. He did great and we stopped into Ruby Tuesday's for dinner before dropping him off.  The scouts spend the weekend in tents but covered under a pavilion. Fortunately we have had a rather mild winter this year. Not much to talk about with snow. More rain and some ice, plus some very cold temperatures. But no snow days to speak of! Scott did have a delay in school for ice, but that is it so far. And it rained on his camping trip on Sunday morning, but the tents stayed dry under the pavilion. Mostly the boys spent the day inside working on badges. Scott had to do some online computer safety retraining to complete his Programming merit badge, but he also had some fun earning the Chess badge. And he participated in a Dutch Oven cook off. His dessert was not a hit with the adults, but the kids loved it-layers of chocolate cake, canned cherries and Hostess Ding Dongs covered in marshmallows. A whole lot of chocolate! It all goes in a big Dutch Oven pot and cooks surrounded by coals. He would have liked it to cook longer, but her ran out of time (and Dutch ovens). It was still a bit soupy. We picked him up on Sunday afternoon. Just in time for him to get home, unpack, shower and head over to his Robotics team meeting.

The Robotics team has just successfully completed their practice bot and tournament bot and will be running trials this weekend. Scott has been working on the CAD/CAM portion of the project and really enjoying the challenge. He successfully wrapped up another semester and was awarded "Math Student of the Month" for Honors Trig. Congrats Scott! Looks like the Math tutor idea paid off.










 Scott has really been working hard at his classes, and spending time working ahead with the math tutor. And he joined his World History Class last week in presenting his Historical Video Interview he completed with our Music teacher. The class presented their work at school last week in the evening. Mostly parents attended and some of the interviewees. Scott interviewed Ms Olenka from Ukraine when she fled to the US for political reasons at age 26. She settled here in Maryland with her family and opened her own Music school. She was professionally trained in piano in Ukraine. Scott did a lot of research on Russia and Ukraine, Reagan and Gorbachov. The teacher loved his video. Especially since most of the kids just did Power Point presentations and Poster boards. The presentations were very interesting-everything from WWII, Vietnam, The Cold War to 9/11 and even our recent Ellicott City flood. I think Scott is just happy to be done with the big project although we had hoped Ms Olenka would have visited. We even have a small gift for her that was made in Ukraine that I picked up during the German Christmas village.

Scott was also invited to join the National Technology Honor Society, so he has been filling out the application and running around school getting signatures on his forms. He has to fill it out before the end of February. Congrats again Scott!

He has also been  working at the Roller Rink on weekends. This is the busy time of year with lots of Birthday parties and Group Events. Scott mostly spends his time repairing skates. And recently he had to attend a yearly training session-helpful that Tom was able to give him a ride since it was right after school on a Monday. Unfortunately his job is not very student friendly.

Allison has also been busy with her new class schedule. Lots of projects. And she is making plans for graduation this semester. She was even asked to be a guest speaker at graduation! But I think she is going to pass-not enough drama in her life to make her speech interesting.

A Big Happy February Birthday to Eric Seitz who celebrated on Super Bowl Sunday!

Thought I would wrap up the month of January in one big blog.

Looks like our winter is mostly a rainy, cold one. Very different from last year with scattered, big snowstorms. Although we're not out of the woods yet. We spent another wet weekend  inside doing housework and  homework. However, it was warm enough for Tom  to set up my new squirrel proof bird feeder mounted on a pole that I got for Christmas.  The old bird feeder was too small(we have very hungry birds!) And when I hang it off a tree or a shepherds hook, the squirrels get into it. We'll see how this works.

  On Sunday, Tom and Allison took time out and headed to Pennsylvania to catch a Hershey Bear Hockey game. Tom owed her one since he went with Matt W the previous weekend. They had a great time stopping into the candy factory before the game.  And Scott and I enjoyed the goodies they brought back!  Meanwhile, Scott had to work at the roller rink. He also had to finish writing a paper for the end of the semester.  I decided to have Mom B over for dinner on Sunday. We also sent out some cards-a Sympathy card for the loss of Mom's cousin which we just discovered passed away last Spring. Also a Birthday card to celebrate Gerry Dugan's Birthday, mom's best friend back in Michigan. Plus we caught the Packers football game-sadly it looks like we won't have any of our favorite teams to cheer for on Super Bowl Sunday.

I also spent Thursday evening with Mom B, at the dentist. She needs quite a bit of work done, so we are getting an early start at the beginning of the year. She needed a root canal-what a way to start the year!  She was a trooper though, and we joined the entire family afterwards for dinner at the Outback steakhouse.

Allison has certainly been enjoying her Winter break. This is her first year where she had the whole month off. In the past she has taken classes. She has had lots of time to schedule medical appointments, work on her resume for summer internships and her application for Grad School. But she has taken some time out for fun including visiting with boyfriend Tyler and spending time with Scott. Cookie has certainly enjoyed her time at home since she gets a walk everyday. She has also been staying active by attending my pool aerobics class with me every week and working out on our treadmill at home. Soon she will be back into her Ultimate Frisbee season.

Tom has also been very busy with his recent online class. He is enjoying this class the most, but it also seems to be the most challenging. Lots of papers, exams and group projects. All online. On top of going to work. I even finished up an online test as a follow up for a Training program in Dementia Care I attended in the Fall. Since I passed the exam with flying colors, I can add a new title to my resume, Dementia Care Specialist.

Lots of studying going on around here. Scott spent a very busy week readying for midterms. He had Martin Luther King Day off, but still had to work. I put Allison to good use to give him a ride. And then when he got home he was busy writing up his last English paper on the Literary Merit of "The Lord of the Flies". He did take a break with Allison and they both went to see the Monster Truck movie over the weekend. They had a great time. He also had a Boy Scout Patrol meeting to attend, robotics meetings and his Video club-all on top of recovering from a cold that he got on his camping weekend in the cold rain.

The following week he was busy with  midterms at school.  He had tests for 4 days in a row. Tests were scheduled for 2 a day with Friday off, so he was very busy studying and squeezing in a boy scout meeting and robotics. He capped off his week with lots of work hours at the roller rink. I decided he needed a break and took both Scott and Allison to the World of Pets Expo on Friday morning. Cookie has been getting spoiled with walks from Allison every day. Since the weather had been extra rainy and cold, we decided to take her to the Pet Expo to get in her walk while checking out free tasty dog treats(Cookie, not us). Cookie was especially fascinated with the non dog pets-ducks, llamas, sheep, a baby baboon, and her absolute favorite, loud, squaky Love Birds. On Thursday night, Allison and Scott joined their friends for an evening of Laser Tag. And on Saturday morning, our family headed out to see the movie,  A Dog's Purpose. Definitely a kleenex film. I was going to scream if they killed off one more dog! But we thought it would be fun to all do something together before Allison left for school. We stopped to have lunch and then headed home to help Allison load her car. In the meantime, Scott headed to his robotics meeting.

Scott has developed a new role on the Robotics team. The freshmen help build the robot chassis, the Seniors take over the design(also their Dad is the coach). But Scott has taken over the CAD system-measuring the robot and putting the design on the computer which he discovered he is very good at and he likes doing it. Also, the adult in charge of that activity is too busy to finish, so Scott has stepped into that role.

And he was not the only one to spend most of his weekend at the roller rink. I volunteered again to help out with the Girl Scout roller rink event this past weekend on Saturday and Sunday night. Since I am the only trained ex leader in this event, the coordinator loves to have me help run the evening activity while she monitors the check in -out process. I am a sucker for difficult projects. Usually we have no issues with the girls-but the parents on the other hand can be miserable. It is a fund raiser event, so everyone that comes in has to pay whether they skate or not. That seems to cause quite a commotion even though the Troops have been fore warned. Also no boys allowed. There always seems to be one family that brings all the siblings. Oh well. I get to practice my poker face and look like I don't care when they start complaining. It is worth the abuse though when I get a few compliments, hugs and thank yous from the previous scout leaders that recognize me and appreciate my time. Then I get to load my entire van up with donated cleaning supplies we've collected at the event to go to Habitat for Humanity programs. This year I counted 42 large buckets of supplies! Boy did my car smell good.