Christmas Card

Before I got married, my mom gave me a binder with all of the Christmas cards she had done for our family.  It was so fun to read through and hear the highlights of each year since my parents were married.  I loved reading about their first couple years of marriage because, believe it or not, they had a lot of the same experiences and struggles we are going through now.  I got to read about their honeymoon adventures, financial worries, their decision to start their own family, and all about us crazy kids as we grew up.  As I was enjoying the cards I kept telling myself that I had to do the same thing for my kids...

So our first Christmas together, 2010, I justified not doing Christmas cards by the fact that just a couple months prior I had sent out thousands of thank-you cards (so it seemed, but more like a couple hundred) from our wedding, so I couldn't afford the postage and everybody was pretty up-to-date on our lives. 

This year, I had no excuse...I found a great groupon to get them real cheap and I did our first Christmas card.  This is the picture I put on there.  It was not a well-planned out picture on my part, a friend from church took it for us right outside by the church parking lot.  I'm not wearing the most flattering dress, but I assume people know I'm not fat so it didn't bother me.  Well, my sweet great-aunt sent us back a Christmas card telling us we look so happy and in love and how "it looks as though there will be a new edition to the family coming soon" and that they're so excited for us and the future ahead.  She's the sweetest thing, so I'll just assume she'll figure it out someday when our first child does comes around and it's been a lot more than 9 months since we sent her the card. 

This Christmas!

 We always love decorating for Christmas while listening to a fun Pandora Holiday station.  We absolutely love our tree and we even had some gifts to put under it.  We find places here and there to stick the other stuff, including my cute little nativity scene.  Dave always makes sure all the Christmas lights are turned on around the house right as soon as the sun goes down. 

 We had our own Christmas a little early (December 10th) since we'll be out in Hawaii for Christmas day.

  I told Dave his presents went together, so of course he had to open them both up at the same time.  We had a great morning with gifts and donuts :)

One of our favorite ways to spread Christmas cheer is to make Christmas cookies (and eat them).  We actually spent four nights of the week we left baking, decorating and delivering cookies to some special people we know.    I'd like to do it for every holiday, because I love soft sugar cookies with almond frosting!

Guess who got dressed first?

We decided we'd go out shopping for Friday date night to get Dave a swimsuit.  On our way into the store we both looked at eachother and realized we were wearing the exact same thing...light jeans, a gray/charcoal color top and flip flops.  Who copied who?

Answer: I had been wearing that outfit all day!  Dave, on the other hand, was wearing his work clothes until we decided to go out. Usually I'm the one wanting to color coordinate our outfits, but this time it was actually Dave who decided to match perfectly with me as we went out and went to 6 different stores and found no swimsuit.  Why does nobody sell swimsuits in December?!?

My husband is really good at his job!

So today we were sitting in the office working and Dave turned to me and asked, "How do you spell Harry?"  He was writing an email to a client he's had for a few months now who goes by his nickname, Harry.  I told him that people usually spell it "H-a-r-r-y"

He started scrolling down through his thread of emails and quietly muffled, "Woops, ok."  I walked over to his desk and saw that he's been addressing all of his emails to him using the spelling "H-a-i-r-y" instead. Haha!

 

So, not only is my husband adorable, but he's also great at his job because Harry hasn't once complained, corrected him or left for another insurance agent eventhough Dave has been calling him Hairy :)  He must really like Dave as his agent.

Thanksgiving Break

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving break with Dave's parents up in Joshua, TX.  Adam couldn't get off work so they couldn't come, and then Katie was pretty sick so they decided last minute to just stay home. 

So there was a lot of food for the 4 of us.  We spent the morning cooking, lots of new recipes.  We had a great meal and were all so full that we went straight to the park to walk some laps. 

Homer was really itching to go do the whole Black Friday thing.  He went through the huge stack of newspaper ads to figure out what he wanted.  Luckily Dave was willing to go so Susan and I got to stay home, watch a movie and get to bed at a decent hour.  They got almost everything they wanted and Dave's happy he had the experience.

We had such a fun week.  The whole weekend was one big double date.  We went out for dinner and a movie, went shopping and they taught me how to shoot a gun.  That was interesting, and the hardest part was actually keeping my eyes open when I was about to pull the trigger.  Susan and I were the only girls at the shooting range.  We also exchanged our Christmas gifts and were definitely spoiled.  What a relaxing, fun break!

 

Note to Self...

It is too hot in Texas to store nice Holiday candles in the outdoor storage closet

(I did manage to find the wick in the one on the right, so it still works!)

Gruene (pronounced green) Marathon

   About midway through September Katie told me she found a great half-marathon to run that is actually on a Saturday.  Most races down here are on Sunday so I just miss out.  I went online to sign up and discovered that it was actually a combination

between a marathon/half marathon.  Same starting line, but the half-marathoners turn around a little sooner than the marathoners to head toward the finish line.  So, from that moment I had about 6 weeks to prepare.

   Training went...ok.  I only had about 4 weeks to really push myself to prepare because the last 2 weeks I needed to be sure my body was well rested.  I went running about 2 or 3 times a week.  I did do one big 12 miler, but I ran out of time before I could push myself to the 20 mile prep run.  It was tough to get out there for one excuse or another, but the biggest one is that there are no really "inspiring" places to run where we live. 

  The day before the race my mom came down and took me, Lisa, and Katie and Tom's family out to dinner.  We had a great time, but I think Katie can agree with me that we were just ready to get this race started.  It was great having the support from everyone.

   I learned something on race day...running a marathon is not one of those "shoot for the moon and land among the stars" things.  Meaning you should never try to "wing it" with a 26.2 mile race or assume that because you've run one before means you'll do just as well with much less training.  I'm sure others have probably felt it too, but there is something called "the wall" when running a marathon.  It's the point where your body starts to hurt more than you can ever remember, the mile markers seemingly get further and further spaced out, and you really begin to doubt whether you can finish or not.  Suddenly my mind was filled with negative thoughts not only at how I might not be able to finish this race, but of any other type of small shortcoming that I felt I had done in life.  Not a good feeling. 

   At mile 20 I thought I was done.  I walked for about 2 miles (quickly) and a volunteer on a bike went alongside me for awhile.  I got a little gatorade, some skittles, and then I was back in action!  I felt much better.  Lisa was waiting for me at mile 24 and she made the rest of the race very pleasant.

   All in all, it was a great experience.  Will I run another marathon? yes.  Will I train much better next time? absolutely.  Did I learn a lot of lessons about preparation, procrastination, and scheduling? Definitely.

    

Love

It's slowly becoming fall here in San Antonio. We've been getting these random cold fronts that come through and make it cold for a few days and then it goes back up to 80+ degrees for a few days until the next one). I've already gotten out my winter jacket a few times.  I really don't like the cold!

But there is one thing I enjoyed about it...it made me realize how much my husband loves the quilt that I made.  Out of all the blankets in our house, I came in to see that he chose this one :)