It doesn’t seem to be that long ago that we were opening Christmas Presents, Singing along with Jules Holland and a gang of bagpipers, nursing a bad head and cleaning out the festive decorations. I appear to have blinked and we’re into the tail end of January. Don’t worry February is only 4 weeks and we’ll be in March!!!
What Happened in January to the Hoopers?
The 30th of January should be a day of celebration for the Hoopers, but I feel like apologising instead. The 30th of January 2018 marks 2 years since we published our first official blog post. Where Cat and I dipped our toes into a new pool of challenges. Never knowing where it would take us. At the 2 year mark, we feel like we knew what we were doing and felt like we’d got our routine into place.
Until life got in the way. The year started off as normal, we started a little decorating. I’d been promising to start decorating our bedroom after the Master Bedroom Ensuite was completed. Catherine decided to rope in her parents for a little bit of painting. When I say a little bit, I mean a living room, a Dining room and three floors of the hallway, including bannisters. During this time I managed to make a start on our bedroom.
Add to this a HUGE job for me at Hooper Signs, where I needed to work in York for 4 days (with our fitting team) 7am – 9pm. The days were long, but it was a necessity to finish the project.
This wasn’t the big job, but I put new graphics on the windows at The Butterfly Cabinet. This year we WILL get there for an epic breakfast.
Next up, my Mother is back in hospital being monitored and “fixed”. So every other day between me and my brothers, we’ve been visiting and keeping her company. Making sure she knows how much we love her and reassuring her that she is still part of our lives.
Then on Sunday, the Kids say “Dad, we’re bored, why can’t we go out and do some fun stuff”. So I took them to B&Q, their new second home.
Spending Time Where It Matters.
So I feel like I’m becoming swamped, with so many elements demanding my time something had to go on pause. And unfortunately, it was the blog. We’ve got loads of posts planned and events scheduled that we need to get back onto. However, for the past couple of weeks, family and work came as the priority.
January Highs.
The irony here is that January hit us really well with the Blog. One New Years day we found out that we’d been put through into the final 8 blogs for the UK Blog Award (in the Parenting and Baby Category). This totally took us by surprise and we couldn’t be happier to be part of it. Fingers Crossed 🙂
The feeling of relief when you tuck away all the Christmas stuff. Returning your home back to normal. There was about 4 days of relaxation and normal life before the January whirlwind too hold.
Planning and Booking trips for 2018. We’ve planned for more than normal this year. Last year took us on a few longer holidays, this time it’s more breaks but shorter lengths. So far we have London, Amsterdam, Pooley Bridge, Center Parcs, Manchester, London Again, Scarborough and not forgetting Butlins, Skegness booked up. This is before we start planning a Summer holiday.
We hope that you’ll follow along with us on these adventures and as 2018 continues, we’re aiming to try and improve our Youtube Videos and building up our Kids channel even more. Blogging will always be the main outlet for our stories, but we’ve found that Youtube has become a great sidekick. We’d like to thank you for your patience and thank you for support over the past 2 years. It means a lot to us.
Thanks
Alan and Catherine.
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