Christmas, here we come

It's that time of year again.  School has ended in CMS, the Christmas parties for the kids are over, and we are getting ready to see family and friends over this holiday season.

The tree is up with all sorts of wrapped presents underneath.

The stockings are hung ready to be stuffed.

Tons of Christmas cards are hung on the wall from all sorts of family and friends.

(sorry not all of them pictured here)

And two little boys ready to open gifts.

We can not wait for Christmas to arrive.  We are planning to stay busy this weekend and through Christmas.  Jay has The Hulk, Ironman, Ninja Turtles, and Transformers all on his list.  If you just mention something else, he adds it to it.  Mason, has no idea what is going on, just that he can't touch the tree or presents.  Oh those glowing lights are just a way to trick little kids and get them into trouble.

This year, we don't have a picture with Santa with the boys.  We didn't make our way to a mall or anywhere else where Santa was there.  Jay really hasn't made a big deal of it.  He knows the reason for the season is for Jesus' birthday.  Last week in Sunday School they had a birthday party and brought gifts for the the Latin American Campus food pantry.

Next time, we will have pictures from Christmas to share.  Until then, have a Merry Christmas!!

Weekend Entertainment

Friday night,  I was able to get out for a bit and go to a friend's house to have a girl's night.  It was great to get away just talk about whatever and just hang out for about 2 hours.

Saturday started out cleaning house while Garrett went to basketball practice at the church with his 13-14 year old boys.  Cleaning with a one-year old at your feet can be challenging, but can be done.

Yesterday afternoon, we made our way to the Charlotte Motor Speedway for my 3rd 5k.  We had awesome weather; 70 in December.  We couldn't ask for a better day.

Kelly McNeill and Laura Church ran in the race as well.  Come to find out in the end, there were several other people that we knew that were there.  We started the race by driving a bus from the speedway to the ZMax dragstrip.  We ran from midway in the dragstrip to the end of it through a tunnel and up to one of the bridges that crosses the road.  The second mile that takes you to the bridge was the toughest because it was a steep uphill run.  Once we crossed the bridge into the speedway we ran all the way around the track.  It was a pretty neat run and really cool to be inside the speedway.  I know I've only been there once, but now I can say I've been there twice.

Afterward, there was the kid dash, which really seemed like a sprint that Jay ran.  It was kind of crazy and some kids trampled over some and others ran in the 5k lane to the finish.

If you look close, you can see Jay to the far left of the picture

Here is Jay crossing the finish line running his little heart out.

Here are the two little runners and their moms when it was all done.

My goal this year was to run a 5k and I've done 3 to finish out the year.  Not bad.  My first was 27:27 in September, 26:26 in November, and 27:24 yesterday.  I was hoping for better yesterday, but still not bad.  I was 1st for the 30-34 year old women and was actually 78th among all of the runners.  I'm not really doing it to win, but the competition side of me doesn't mind if I do.  I haven't signed up for one next year, but I plan to at some point.  Lets see if I can get a better time.  I would like to be under 25 minutes at some point.