Jan 1-31, 2015: Good-bye 2014 & Hello 2015!

Happy New Year!! I'm only writing this about 7 weeks late!  I can only say that, as a family, we are only too happy to say good-bye and good riddance to 2014 and we look forward to a bright and healthy 2015!!  The Johnson family celebrated the new year with one more round of the flu! Elin first got sick with a fever and cough the day we left Virginia, then Kelli started a fever/chills on the way home, Kent got sick a few days after Kelli, and finally, Erik got sick about 5 days later though his case was, thankfully, the mildest. He was also the only one able to get prescription medicine!  We didn't do anything for the New Year's Eve holiday; we were all too sick and miserable to even watch fireworks on TV.  We certainly hope that's the last of our illnesses for a good long time. It actually seems only fitting that we ended the year of 2014 with another round of illnesses; here's hoping that we don't get sick for a very long time in 2015 [small look into the future: by the last week of February, Kelli & the kids all have mild colds again!]!

January was a pretty busy month for us with our attempt to get back to work, back to school, back to routine. Since I am writing this blog entry late (of course) I am going to focus more on pictures of things we did this month rather than trying to write about it. 

We opened all the gifts that we had left at home rather than drag up & back from Virginia on New Year's Day, January 1.  Both Erik & Elin have now reached expert status on unwrapping gifts!

We took the new wheels out for a test spin after opening gifts:

Erik had a song performance at his school on Friday, January 9 (he's the fifth from the right in the blue/white striped shirt with white long sleeves):

We celebrated Christmas (again) on Friday, January 16, with our Florida family, the Zbaraschuk's,
the Cochran's, and the Deininger's:

We took the kids bowling for the first time on Saturday night, January 17:

Erik joined a soccer league on Sunday morning, January 18:

We played with hats:

We took the kids to Sabbath school:

We did a lot of playing all month:

Elin convinced Daddy to build her tunnels every night before bedtime:

Elin & Erik work on their photography skills: