"It's Always Fun When Grandpa Comes"

When Grandpa comes to visit and brings a bunch of hot sauce, it's time for a hot sauce taste test. We cut up some chicken nuggets to dip in the sauces (and had chocolate milk as needed) and we had a great time. Even though Grandpa likes them "watery eyes, burn your taste buds" spicy, none of these had quite that level of heat. We were all able to enjoy the experience with burning tongues that didn't last too long.

 

We gave Jet a container with regular ketchup to dip his chicken nuggets in because he wanted to be involved. A couple of family members decided not to participate and that's just fine.

 

Why Did I Take This Picture?

You know how sometimes you're looking through pictures and you're like, "Why did I take this picture?" Sometimes you remember. Sometimes you don't.

While preparing to blog, I was transferring pictures from my phone and I got a glimpse of one of me with Christmas lights in the background. 

I looked at the date. It was January 22. That was a Thursday. I know the kids had school that day. How would I have gotten a morning walk picture that day at City Center Park? 

Then I remembered. That night, as part of the Orem Library Adult Reading Challenge, I went to an event- Favorites of 2025 Book Club Night. A big group of us sat around sharing our favorite reads from 2025. It was nice. I got some ideas of books that I wouldn't think to pick myself. I got a sticker for my junk journal. I got some refreshments. 

On the way out, I took a picture of me with lights near the entrance to the library. Ah ha. Because not only are the lights on at the park in the morning and at night, they are outside the library as well.

Mystery solved.

By the way, January 22 was also Polka Dot Day and National Hot Sauce Day so I went around wishing people Happy Polka Dot Day and I made pasta and encouraged family members to eat pasta with rotisserie chicken and hot sauce.

I Love Birding Challenges

Besides the annual reading challenge I'm doing, it is another year for a birding challenge through Utah County Birders. Books and birds. Aren't they great? And yes, I will sometimes listen to an audiobook while I'm looking at birds.

Jeremy and Nichole (who are also doing the birding challenge), got out one evening for some bonding birding time to the Provo River Delta and saw a barn owl among a few other birds.

Jeremy and I decided to go the next week for a morning birding adventure to see if we could find the owl.

We got there nice and early. You know I love mornings in nature. It was cold, we didn't see the barn owl, but we saw so many other birds. It was worth it.

And somehow I turned the exposure way down on the birding camera so all the bird pictures we took are dark. Sigh.

Oh well. We still enjoyed seeing them... together.

 

I love bonding time! 

 

That day, January 17, was Popeye Day and Hot Heads Chili Day so we had spinach salad and chili on cornbread (I added hot sauce on top of my chili).

The next day, January 18, was Winnie-the-Pooh Day. We had foods with honey: Honey garlic chicken, salad with honey mustard dressing.

It was also Thesaurus Day so we had fun figuring out different way of saying things. Lucky wanted to make Kool-aid. I corrected him and told him it was "Colored Flavored Sugar Water." He needed to put crystalized sweetener in it (aka sugar). The funny thing is the honey I used for dinner was crystalized (crystalized sweetener) so I had to heat it up in order to use it. Heh Heh Heh. 

Catching Up January 2025 Part 3

January 19 was Brew a Potion Day and National Popcorn Day and Whisper "I Love You" Day. There were definitely whispers of "I love you" that day. Somebody made popcorn. 

I'm not sure what this is. It definitely looks like some sort of potion. It's possible it is Chicken Tortilla Soup since that was what was on the menu plan for that day. Catching up isn't always easy when I'm making assumptions months later.

 

January 20 was Penguin Awareness Day. We ate fish sticks and started watching some penguin movie.

 

January 21 was National Hug/Hugging Day and Granola Bar Day. Some of us ate granola bars. Some of us also got some good hugging in.

January 22 was Hot Sauce Day. Lucky loves hot sauce and puts it on a lot of things.

Speaking of Lucky and his love of hot sauce, for Christmas he got a bunch of little bottles of hot sauce so one evening, we had a taste test, starting with what was supposed to be the mildest and working our way to the hottest. We dipped chicken nuggets in them to try them out. I'll be honest, that was fun.

January 23 was Pie Day. I made a pudding pie using a homemade graham cracker crust that had been sitting in our freezer for a long time.

I also had a Relief Society activity that night.

 

January 25 was A Room of One's Own Day. 

January 28 was Blueberry Pancake Day. I think we had blueberry pancakes. I think. But I don't see pictures so... who knows?

That day, Lucky went to an event at the Orem Library: Winter in Narnia. He made a shield and a dragon and did other activities. 

While he was at his event, I was left unsupervised. I only had two items on my list to check out but... I ended up with a lot more. After I took this picture, I picked up even more to check out. Tee Hee. I love the library.

 

Even More Celebrating in January

January 19 was Whisper "I Love You" Day. I whispered it. I tried whispering while texting but it didn't translate over very well. I had to explain to Jeremy that what I was writing was whispered.

It was also National Popcorn Day but we were so busy that we celebrated National Popcorn Day Observed. Jeremy tried some new flavors of popcorn seasoning (at the same time but in different bowls). Thank you, Jeremy.

January 20 was Penguin Awareness Day. Lucky created a slide show of penguins to the music, "Ride of the Valkyries," and called it "Ride of the Penguins."

The kids watched Penguins: Spy in the Huddle that day. It's become tradition when we can manage it. We also ate fish sticks which is also tradition because penguins eat fish.

 

January 21 was National Hugging Day. You better believe there was hugging. It was also Granola Bar Day and people did indeed eat granola bars.

 

January 22 was National Hot Sauce Day. I made baked mac 'n' cheese that had sauce in it and added cooked ground beef that needed to be used. #shelfcooking

We also took our last baguette and Jeremy made garlic bread out of it. 

That evening for FHE treat, we had cake batter blondies for Blonde Brownie Day but we didn't have white chocolate chips and I wasn't going to go to the store for them so I used regular chocolate chips and Jr. called them "brunettes." Heh Heh.

January 23 was National Pie Day. We celebrated that one observed because I was too tired at the end of the night but when we did celebrate it observed, we had vanilla pudding pie with pumpkin pie ice cream on it like we did for Thanksgiving. I forgot to take a picture but I put a picture of our Thanksgiving pie and ice cream on my blog January 2 of this year.

 

January 24 was National Compliment Day. Lucky and I gave each other compliments. It was also National Peanut Butter Day. Jet had peanut butter on a tortilla. He loves that.

Hot Sauce Day 2022

January 22 in 2022 was Hot Sauce Day. I made Sweetfire Chicken using the Panda Express Sweet Chili Sauce Jeremy got me. He loves me. 

I loved the food. Both Jeremy and Nichole picked out the pineapple but did not feel the leftover pineapple flavor was overbearing so they liked it. Jet loved it, too. Jr. said he liked it. The other boys refused to even try it. Sigh.