A little of this, a lot of that

 Sorry for the delay the past few weeks. It has been rather hectic. I ran a half marathon in Tulsa, flew home (barely made it), worked a day and a half then we went to Arkansas for Thanksgiving. It was great to see everyone I managed to see, and I hope that I'll get some time off at Christmas to actually make a trip to OK. My half time was 2:24, so I was happy. It was right in the range I thought it should be.

A being a carry-on during our layover in Houston for the trip to Tulsa

Yep, people from NE, NC, and AZ all met to run the half marathon

My friend Maggie and me before our half marathon. We got dropped off and it strangely felt like we were 10 again...

Emily made it to the finish as well.

Yep all 13.1 miles (most of it with Maggie!)

Learning that ornaments are not balls, despite how similar they look

All a girl needs -- shoes and a handbag!

Riding in the car home from Arkansas

Figuring out which spoon to use

This one looks good

Well, maybe they'll both fit in my mouth

This one has stuff left on it

 Now we are getting ready for Christmas. Chris put up the tree today and we will slowly decorate it over the next few days. Today we also went to Sweet Frog, as you can see above. A demanded having her own spoon, quickly deciding she also wanted her daddy's. She took control of both leaving Chris to wonder why he didn't get more originally. Apparently the raspberry/pomegranate was good.

Anyway, more to do and a week to get ready for. The next few weeks of work for me are promising to be crazy, so hopefully I still have a job and we all have sanity at the end of it.

Black Saturday

Black Saturday is the last home game of the season here at Appalachian State. It is "Senior Day" and a big deal for all the graduating seniors. We got tickets for the grass under the video board. One advantage to having a field stuck in the side of a mountain is that sitting on the hill meant we got pretty decent seats. It was kind of difficult getting up and down or finding a flat place to put a drink. It was kind of cool, and as night closed in it got pretty chilly. The game was good. Not our usual OU standard of play, but still a decent game. ASU ended up winning 33-28, mainly because of the 4 field goals that were kicked.

The past few weeks have been fairly busy around here. After Sandy came through (we just got snow for 3 days straight) and the Nor'easter Pete (another 2 days of snow) this weekend has been beautiful. We got to test the new car in the snow and it does wonderfully. Chris had to shovel in and out of the drive in the Focus while I just zipped in, just for a comparison.

I've also managed to get a fair amount of quilting done. I really like this top and hope that the little girl it is going to likes it just as much. I've had quite the time with the corners and things measuring out right, as you can tell by this picture. The skulls have pink hairbows, as you can see in a few different places.

A has decided that "No No No" is her favorite word/phrase. She especially says it when we go to change her diapers. She wants to go on the toilet, and has managed to a few times, but not with enough consistency for us to feel confident letting her run around in underwear. Maybe some training pants are in our future...

She is also really liking to dress herself. If she says, "No" to something we will let her pick something else out, and normally that is a good compromise. We really do try and allow her to tell us, "No," provided it isn't something major. We also have a Tennessee Smokey Dog that is her favorite. Now if one of our wonderful OK family could get us a similar Boomer then we'd be in business. Smokey goes everywhere and does most everything with A. Here was one of her more entertaining outfits this week -- a pink crinoline skirt, with a skater type tee and her blue fleece hat that occasionally she let stay on longer than thirty seconds.

I hope you all have had a good couple of weeks!