Beginning of holiday season

It seems like so much longer than a week since I last posted.  What a great week it has been!  

The morning after the epic win, my sister and her husband ran the Living History Farms race.  While neither of them are really runners, they decided to run this popular cross-country race as family bonding with Chad's step-mom.  The late night and the cold air would have been enough to ward me off, but throw in the cross-country nature of the race (with creek crossings) and more than 7 miles of running... I was more than happy to come along to cheer and take pictures.  Their team name was the Mud Fairies, and there were so many great costumes.  This race pull in upwards of 7,500 runners and most were in some sort of costume, whether it was Waldo, Santa and his reindeer, Lego men, cross-dressers, zombies, and those gentlemen sporting skimpy women's underwear.  It was interesting to say the least!  We didn't stay to see them cross the finish line over an hour later, but we're still proud of them for finishing the race!

Immediately following the race, we hosted the first Christmas of the season.  My grandparents are snow birds and are heading to their home in Texas soon, so we held Christmas with them after the game (we all have season tickets).  This is the second year we have hosted a grown-up holiday, and Rick did a great job preparing the meal for the 8 of us.  It was a great family holiday, but as soon as everyone had left, I took a nap to try and catch up on my sleep.

Tuesday we headed south to spend Thanksgiving with Rick's folks in Texas.  We had a really nice visit, and watched so much football it was unreal.  Tuesday evening we ate at Texas de Brazil which deserves mention: it is a spectacular all-you-can-eat meat establishment.  Essentially you are brought different kinds of meat in small portions to try until you tell them to stop.  The filet mignon melted in my mouth--it was amazing.  The other meats were also delicious  I was the last person eating at the table, and consequently, didn't eat too much the rest of the trip.  It was worth it!

We didn't have any big plans on the trip and spent a lot of quality family time.  We had a big family meal on Wednesday night and had a great Thanksgiving meal on Thursday.  Rick's step-mom is a Superintendent and her school's football team had a playoff game on Friday night, so we went to support the team.  They ended up winning and Becky got to present the boys with a huge trophy.

We came home late yesterday and the ride was not smooth--the winds were pretty high.  While we were glad to be on the ground, my mom was worrying about my dad who had taken a small plane with my cousin, brother-in-law, and friend to the ISU-Oklahoma game (unfortunately we were unable to pull back-to-back upsets).  Dad is a great pilot, but we were all glad to hear that they were going to stop in Ames for the night. We picked up my cousin this morning (he was still nauseous from the plane ride) on our way to pick up the dog.

After we got home from our flying trip north, we went in search of a Christmas tree.  Our stop to the tree farm was unsuccessful (except for the beautiful wreath), but we did find a great tree at Home Depot.  I know how un-fun that is, but they did have a much better selection than the tree farm.  Last year I had a hard time convincing Rick we needed a 7ish foot tree, but this year we headed straight for the 8-10 foot trees.  Yes!  I love the tree we got; it has character and is just small enough to not be ridiculous.  I think we have enough ornaments to fill it, but I will update on how it looks after we get it decorated.  Letting the branches settle for a few days before we get crazy with the Christmas (though most of my non-tree decorations are up from last week's Christmas).

If the dog could talk, she would argue that the best addition to the house today was her new bed.  We decided a while ago that hers was getting pretty thin and we would get her a new one for Christmas.  When I found the Kong chew resistant bed I knew this would be the replacement.  We let her out of her crate after  we got the tree up in the living room, and she didn't even notice it--she went straight to her new bed.  Darby has spent the last 6 hours on her bed; she hardly got up to eat supper.  We had to physically lift her off the bed to get her to go outside tonight.  I think she likes it.  Not only is it made by Kong (if you have a dog, you know that brand is pretty durable), but the cushions come out and the cover is washable.  We all win.

Another short week--I'm off to Vegas with my sister on Tuesday!