Happy New Year! (Almost a Week Late)

It's been a whole week since I blogged last. Have you given up on me? I am still here. Life has pretty much non-stop since we got home from Florida on Monday. I have spent the last week putting away Christmas decorations, cleaning the house, catching up on laundry, getting my kids ready to head back to school and all kinds of other boring but necessary things that needed doing.

I have also been trying to function on an average pf 6 hours of sleep a night so I haven't been the most efficient in accomplishing my tasks (#zombie). Stretch has joined the jazz band at school and has to be at school an hour earlier than last semester and it just might kill me. I have no idea how I am going to do it all next year when he is in high school and will be attending early morning seminary (a four year course of scripture study that high school kids in our church often participate in) at 6:00am.

Now it is Friday night. My kids are in bed--most of them anyway--and I am taking a few minutes for myself.
I have lots of things floating around in my brain: I want to share some of my favorite Christmas gifts some time soon but I haven't taken pictures yet; I made a couple of cards that I could share--it's been a long time since I made cards; I have some ideas for a series I'm planning; I've read a couple of great books I could review. But for tonight I think I will just share a couple more pictures from our trip.

This isn't the clearest picture but I love it because what you can't see is that this cute otter and Specs were having a moment. The otter paused and looked Specs right in the eyes before moving on. They were so fun to watch and seem so intelligent.

We spent New Year's Eve at the Florida Aquarium with the family. We loved it. All of it. Except for maybe when my husband got pooped on by an ibis in the Florida wetlands exhibit. Yeah. . .Who am I kidding? We loved that too. It gave most of us a good laugh (and yes, I took a picture of that too, but I will spare you).

I should have paid closer attention to what kind of fish these were but I was too busy oohing and ahhing over the sunlight streaming through the water. Pretty, eh?

I love the seahorses. They are kind of bizarre but so cool and seem to be such gentle creatures.

Jellyfish. Spectacular.

My sister and niece taking shark pictures. The sharks were pretty impressive.

Doesn't this sea turtle look wise? I wonder how old he is. I bet he's seen a lot in his day.

On the way home we made a pitstop at IKEA on the way home. We had a little party at my sister's house that night with yummy food and games and toasted the New Year with sparkling grape juice.

Clockwise from top: collard greens, black eyed peas, green onion, hot cornbread slathered with melty butter, hunk of white cheese. It is delicious to use the green onion as a chaser for the beans or collards.

New Year's Day we went to church then came home and made a traditional dinner of black eyed peas, collard greens and cornbread. According to tradition, the black eyed peas are for luck and the collard greens are for riches so I made sure to eat plenty of both. :)

Black eyed peas and beans.

A real Southern golden cake of cornbread (made with bacon drippings. Mmm mmm).

When I got home from our little trip I had gained five pounds. So worth it though.

I made some resolutions for the new year too. I'm doing pretty well so far. I'll fill you in soon.

P.S.
--How cute is THIS hat that my cousin made? I sure do have talented relatives.
--I enjoyed THIS post about not seizing the day.
--I made THESE and they were tasty. I wish I had some leftover right now.