Saturday I stopped on the way to the church league games at my favorite local food truck for one of their delicious chai teas – perfect in that freezing weather 🙂

Normally Mason doesn’t want any of us at his basketball games – we’re not sure why – but last week he let us come. I was so excited I got virtually no action photos, but did get this one of him inbounding the ball, and of him going through the handshake line after the game. Fun evening.

When I got to their house to pick Clara up for school last Monday, I think it was, she was so excited to introduce me to her new kitten, Newt – named after some character in The Maze Runner, I think she said. He is a beautiful little tuxedo cat, and seems to be settling in perfectly.

Last Saturday we were in Rock Hill to see Charlie & Adam in their church league basketball games. Not much on the action shots, I’m afraid. I did at least get this picture of Adam out on the court – #1.

Sherri came up for the day to see them play, and then we went out to eat lunch before she headed home. I got this picture of her with the boys as we were leaving the restaurant.

Friday Jeff & I picked Mallory up when she got out of class at 11:00 & headed to Sumter. Mal & I had been planning this visit for some weeks, and of course Jeff wanted to go and see her, too. Our goal was the Temple Sinai Jewish History Center, where we wanted to see the temporary exhibit about the history of the Torah that they have there at the synagogue. When we arrived right next to the parking lot was a beautiful little park that had been erected in memory of the victims of the holocaust.

Alas the lady working there told us the museum was closed for the day due to some sort of issue with the heating system. When she told us that, I asked if it would be possible to even see the Torah exhibit, because it is supposed to be dismantled the end of the month, and as it turned out, it was in a different part of the building than the rest of the museum, so we were able to see it. One of the members of the congregation had spent some years researching the history of one of their Torahs, and the story of what he found was so interesting. They knew that it had been created in 1815 in Czechoslovakia to celebrate the birth of a family’s son, because that was what was embroidered on the band that was around it. Where all it had been since then was so interesting, especially the story of the Torahs during the Nazi regime. This was one of the plaques.

Because we couldn’t tour the museum we had time to stop by Swan Lake there in the town of Sumter. It is a huge park with a couple of enormous ponds, and dozens of different swans of I think ten different varieties. They were beautiful. That park is also an Iris Garden, so we want to go back when the flowers are all blooming. I know it must be absolutely gorgeous.

Thursday evening was the first program after the holidays at the auditorium in town – the Noel Friedline Quintet. What talent. This picture I got was just of Noel himself – an incredible piano player. Wow.

Tuesday the rains and winds that had been predicted arrived – all of the local schools were on e-learning that day, to keep the school buses off of the roads – and it absolutely poured almost all day long. Once they had finally passed over late in the afternoon Jeff & I walked down to inspect the creek, which is normally just sort of a trickle under our driveway. Our next-door neighbor, who can see the creek from his house, reported that it had flowed over both of our driveways during the worst part of the rain. It had receded a little bit by the time that we got there. Here are a couple of pictures. Wow. In the second picture you can see the new little creek that made itself from the run off from the road. Crazy.

Last week before the kids went back to school for the new semester, Adam & I went to Captain Steve’s for lunch for one more outing before it was back to the grind. He is such good company, and as always the food was delicious.

Yesterday afternoon we were in Rock Hill to see Adam & Charlie play in their games. It was Adam’s first of the season – Charlie played once before Christmas, but it was the day Adam & I went to participate in the Wreaths Across America program, so this was the first time we’d seen either of them play. Adam’s game was first – he is in the white, right in the middle of the picture.

After a Woodland UMC victory we all went out for a quick lunch at Salsarita’s, and then to Charlie’s game. He’s playing for St John’s this year – there weren’t enough kids at Winthrop to field a senior team. That’s him with the ball.