Writer’s atrophy. That’s what I’m calling it. My name is Jennifer [hi, Jennifer] and my last entry was nine weeks ago [applause]. Or something like that.

Well let’s just jump right from Christmas to Lent shall we? Unfortunately I can’t say there wasn’t much going on . . . you wouldn’t believe me anyway. But I’ll try to put things in a nutshell child by child.

Emma had a STELLAR beginning to 2009 when she clinched a runner-up trophy for her highland dancing in Windsor in early February. This was her best finish to date and created plenty of tears. There is an extra measure of sweetness to it since it was accomplished in Canada which produces champion highland dancers at the same rate as hockey players. Truly a huge accomplishment and we are so proud of her. She also continues to do very well in school – 5th grade has been a banner year for Emma.

JB continues with his soccer and has added electric guitar lessons to his repertoire/schedule along with choir and all the other things he’s busy with. He is also excelling at school and pulled ahead of his class in his math studies and has enjoyed all the attention of being “in the lead” which only further encourages him to excel. He has also had a great 3rd grade year this year and has really “clicked” with his teacher. No doubt when she had the class applaud his math achievements recently she earned a few brownie points!! Nothing like stroking an ego!!

Shannon continues to be the life of the party. (Speaking of egos, don’t tell her I said that!) She’s short a few front teeth at the moment, which just adds to her charm. Hillbilly charm I guess. She’s Ranger’s best friend and continues to amaze us with her expressions and wit. I wish you all could have been there to see our jaws hit the concrete when she told Aladdin at DisneyWorld that his joke wasn’t as funny as her’s. I suddenly wanted to shrink to the size of the Bug’s Life characters!

Yep – we “did” DisneyWorld a few weeks ago. We had a wonderful time – decent weather and crammed as much as we possibly could into our vacation. All four theme parks in four straight days – we weren’t afforded the luxury of spacing out the parks because of a dicey weather forecast (which turned out to be nothing.) But the days off at the end of the trip allowed us to enjoy two additional “attractions” to the speedway in Daytona and more importantly to see friends in Jacksonville. The photos include a shot of the kids on the beach in Daytona. Joel indulged me with a trip to a very cool bar on the beach where the original race in Daytona used to be. I would tell you where it is, but then I’d have to kill you. But seriously, it was the coldest day of the vacation, but there’s just something about the ocean that draws you in and the next thing you know you’re running on the sand down to the water. You can see the utter misery on the kids faces in the photo, can’t you?

As far as the photos go, I’ve at least sifted through the still photos from our trip to Disney. Don’t hold your breath on the video. I think I might need a small vacation alone to get that done.

Hope you’re all having a blessed Lenten season. I truly love the metamorphoses that take place during these 40 days – not only in ourselves, but even in the trees and birds and deer (which we have plenty of!) around us. Some writers even begin to write again . . . amazing. Bright thought for the day: we’re about two weeks away from seeing crocuses. Hope is a beautiful thing.