Santa Claus is coming to towm

Classy holiday party...

George family 'Christmas' dinner. My younger brother was blessed with the Santa costume this year...
Siblings....Big and little cousins...some are happier than others

Holiday festivities

I can't believe Christmas is next week and 2010 is less than two weeks away! Boy, time goes by faster and faster every year. Last weekend I attended an Army Christmas party with Drew. It was fun seeing all of the soldiers and being able to put names to faces again. The first and last time I met most of them was back in June at the Army picnic. Last weekend's event was a really nice get-to-gether and I think somewhat sentimental for the soldiers because they are deploying next year. As of now, they are scheduled to deploy to Iraq in September. It sucks to think about, but 1. anything can happen before then so there's no reason to worry about it now and 2. it's encouraging to see how well the soldiers get along and are dedicated to what they do/will be doing.

(Yes, that is Drew squatting in the front on the left, and smiling)

This weekend is also fun filled with my dad's family Christmas party tomorrow. It's a pretty big tradition - they have been gathering for Christmas dinner since 1952. Just recently it was changed to the Sunday before to get a better turnout with people having to attend multiple family functions on Christmas day. I'm going to help my mom bake cookies when I get home from work in a little bit. For as long as I can remember she has been in charge of bringing desserts. She and my dad have been making buckeyes all week and I'm going to attempt to make a variety of sugar and or chocolate chip cookies. We'll see how ambitious I am after this shift is over.

I'm not sure what's in store for this evening, but hopefully the snow doesn't get in the way. We haven't had much yet, but there are flakes falling this morning. I love the way it settles on the tree branches...it looks so pretty.

Just laugh

So, this is a bit of a silly post, but I want to share it with you anyways. I was on my way home from work yesterday complaining to Drew on the phone about how windy it was outside (it wasn't raining or snowing, but boy was it windy! At one point I even thought the stop light was going to fall on my car.) when Drew made the mistake of telling me that he had two kites in his basement. I immediately took the first exit I came to and turned around and headed towards his house. Once we decided on the Dolphin kite we jumped into his car and drove down by the river. Now, you're going to have to use your imagination because I forgot to grab my camera,

(this is a replica I found online)

but try to imagine two semi-adults standing up on this hillside near the river, with winds strong enough to blow us over and a blue dolphin kite. I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard. This dolphin was out of control!! Drew almost took off my head a couple of times with the thing and there was even a point when I felt like I was jumping rope, trying to get away from the string. I, on the other hand, had even less control over the kite. My dolphin looked like a skydiver who forgot to unleash his parachute. He just kept nose diving to the ground. It never got old though - we just kept laughing and laughing at the kite and each other. It was as though we both were 10 years old again - and didn't have a single care in the world. By the time we finished I couldn't feel my toes or fingers and my cheeks had wind burn. At the time though, I didn't even notice because all I could do was laugh...

Moving on up!

Our team won big Monday night. We made a turn for the better and won all three games. That puts us at 9-9 going into next week's final game against a pretty tough team. They are 15-2. Keep your fingers crossed that we can pull off an upset ;)

I don't have anything particularly interesting to update you on. I'm hoping to finish my Christmas shopping this weekend. This past weekend was cut short because I had to fill in at the station. Normally Sunday and Monday are my days off, but they needed help in the studio Monday so it messed with my free time a bit. I really can't complain though. I enjoy getting into the studio every so often. Plus, it was an exciting morning. Mother nature let her winter magic loose and dropped about a half inch of snow throughout the area. It doesn't sound like much, but because the ground was so cold it caused major problems. Since then, things have calmed down, but today is suppose to bring some heavy winds and possibly some more snow. We'll see what happens. I just don't want the power to go out or for it to be so bad I can't drive home!

Other than that, the only thing I really want to share is a little secret of mine. If you are like me, you enjoy saving a buck or two where ever you can. Well, I have become a regular at my local library and not for checking out books, but for checking out movies! It's the greatest thing. I've been able to watch new releases, old releases and even TV series all for FREE. Some of the new releases are tough to get your hands on because you can't reserve them and you can only have them for 4 days, but it's still better than paying nearly $4 (actually it could be more by now) to rent them. And for old movies, my library has a system where you can go online and reserve/put a movie on hold and it can be sent from one library to the next. Now my only problem is coming up with movies I haven't seen. If you have any suggestions...please share!

Work out buddy

Yes, Drew and I have been working out together for the past week. He got me to switch gyms to one that is close to his house. The only reason I decided to do it is because I'm now paying $15 less per month and it's less than a 5 minute drive from work. So far, I'm really happy with the switch because I don't get tired on the drive from work to the gym, plus who doesn't like to save a bit of money. Overall though, the atmosphere is geared towards a younger crowd which I really like and knowing that someone else is going to be there is helping to keep me accountable during these first few weeks while I create a routine.

Needless to say, we are both unbelievable sore. The gym offers a free consultation with a trainer when you join and the guy definitely put us through a grueling hour of workouts. Drew had his a couple of days before me and the trainer asked him to a boot camp session as a part of his consultation. Drew was up against 2 ultra-marathon runners and an assistant trainer. The poor guy could hardly move the next day! He then joined me during mine, which probably wasn't a good idea. And, considering we are both competitive people who hate to lose, we worked our butts off. I can say though, I kicked butt at the plank. For the most part though, the trainer had us doing different drills/exercises during the entire time so it felt like a one-on-one session.

I'll keep you posted on how our gym experience continues. We took a spinning class together earlier this week and I'm really trying to get him to go to a yoga one with me. He's a bit hesitant right now, but he's starting to realize that it could help his sore muscles. We'll see...

On a positive note, our volleyball team finally broke our losing streak. We have two more games left before tournament play begins. One of the teams has a record worse than ours and the other is ranked first or second in our league. Keep your fingers crossed.