~~~FRIDAY MEMES~~~

Food 4 Thought Friday

A little feast without the calories!!!

Feel free to play along for some yummy fun! I will post a new one each Thursday night for those that are on a different time zone. JOIN IN!!!

Food 4 Thought Friday ~ This week's questions:

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Breakfast
Are you a "real" Christmas tree fan or "artificial"?

Lunch What is the earliest and latest you have ever sent out your Christmas cards?

Dinner Do you decorate the outside of your house?

Midnight Snack How close are you to being done with your Christmas shopping?

Recipe of the Week (instead of your recipe for life, what is it just for this week?)

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MY ANSWERS

Breakfast
Are you a "real" Christmas tree fan or "artificial"? Good question! I used to love the real ones, but now with the artificial ones complete with pre-lit lights, it would be SO nice to not have to hassle with that anymore! I do LOVE the smell of the real ones but it is short lived and then there's all those needles to constantly pick up. My vote is for an artificial one, but Dave and the boys love the real ones. We have fun traditions associated with picking out our tree as well, so I am sure I will be voted down!

Lunch What is the earliest and latest you have ever sent out your Christmas cards? The earliest was probably when we didn't have any kids and I am sure they were mailed the very first part of December! Now, well let's just say this years arrived on St. Patrick's Day. But it was planned! Well kind of. I had decided to start doing a Valentine's Newsletter instead of Christmas because it would be so much easier. So we did that for a few years, but last year I was behind on that so it became a St. Pat's one! Ugh! Maybe I should shoot for Easter this year! haha

Dinner Do you decorate the outside of your house? Yes! I love that part of Christmas because I don't have to help with it, other than tell them how I want it to look! Dave and my boys do it all and they do a great job.

Midnight Snack How close are you to being done with your Christmas shopping?Oh ho-ho-ho!!! That is a good one! I am NOT even close at all! I hope it comes together this year. I have never felt this so far behind ever!

Recipe of the Week (instead of your recipe for life, what is it just for this week?) Cherish the moments....always cherish the moments.♥

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1. You get me an idea of what you want for Christmas this year and it's done. You don't, and you may be disappointed!

2. I really must get right to it or it will be a sad Christmas this year!

3. It's the most stressful time of the year for me!

4. Some of the holiday's expectations are ridiculous!

5. I feel more like a scrooge this year than ever before.

6. Here's wishing you all a very...goodnight!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to getting ALL my Christmas up even if I have to stay up all night to finish!, tomorrow my plans include feeling bad I can't run the Snowman Shuffle for the first time in three years because of a conflict with a baby shower for my sister in law, after the shower I am attending the city's Christmas home show and then after than we will probably either go shopping or hit the High Priest party, and Sunday, I want to enjoy the fact that I don't have to attend a million meetings anymore, and just enjoy the day!!!

~♥~ In Memory of Tyson ~♥~

~♥~Tyson~♥~

July 15, 1988 ~ December 2, 2005

Always in our hearts...

Never forgotten....

We love and miss you bud more than words can say...♥

♥CHERISH THE MOMENTS♥

For more photos go to his birthday post HERE

Running with the Ho-Ho's!!!

There is a race called the SANTA RUN that I heard about last year and really wanted to do with my friends, but we heard about it too late and couldn't get registered on time. Sooo...we all planned on doing it for sure this year! Not everyone could do it, but three of us did and we had a BLAST!!!

SANTA RUN 2009



















Click to enlarge

Me with my friends and fellow running Santa's ---Heather and Jen.































Here we are hanging with the other 297 Santas listening to instructions before the start of the race. The race was held at 4:30 p.m. right before the Holiday Light Parade.

We dressed alike and even though there were tons of others dressed just as unique, we got a lot of compliments and stares (and people taking our picture). Must have been that we were all three alike! Or possibly the socks or suspenders??? No, it had to be the cute shorts Jen made us!































They had us do SANTA WARM-UPS before the start of the race.


We did "Hat, Beard, Belly, and Boots" (a version of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes) and then some calisthenics while we counted with HO-HO's. VERY FUN!

























On our marks... get set...

GO!!!!! We are just to the right of the yellow stroller. The first green light is above Jen's head. Look for the socks! lol (click to enlarge)

We are seriously having TOO MUCH FUN! Okay, not seriously...we took nothing serious about this race at all!

The 5K route (3.1 miles) went down four blocks and then turned back the other way and repeated three times along the Holiday Light Parade route.

We saw a lot of interesting sights along the way!

As I said before, we didn't take this race seriously. We all carried our cameras and stopped A LOT to take tons of photos. Jen cracked me up because she wanted to NOT SWEAT because she knew we would be freezing by the time the parade started that we were all staying to watch. A good idea, but not really possible in a 5K...even when you are stopping a lot and not pushing it.



The aid stations had cute little elves serving COOKIES and MILK!!!

Yes, we had to stop and take our photo with the Santa's little helper and PRETEND we are eating the cookies and milk. They just don't sit well in your stomach when you are running a race... but cute idea anyway!!!

One of Santa's larger elves....




































Yes, another stop! We just HAD to take our picture with this band!!!


















Back to the pavement.....



















We turned a corner and saw the FINISH LINE. For some reason this race seemed longer than most 5K's. Hmm...I wonder if it's because we stopped to take photos so much?!!! As you can see below, sometimes we didn't even stop to take the photo!














Our time was pathetic, but all in all not too bad considering all our stops! lol





































We had to stand in line after crossing the finish line to turn in our race number. That's a first.


Some photographer guy that stalked us the entire race, asked if he could photograph us after we finished.
















MY cheerleaders!!! AND action photographer!
















It was just a little windy at times!!!















Look who we found!!! ↓ He was just walking down the street as if some normal pedestrian. We stopped and asked if we could have our photo with him. He said sure. He was the REAL thing! It was HIM, I know it!





















A little later Jen took her son Logan over to see him and look what he gave her!!! ↓ SEE I TOLD YOU! I JUST KNEW IT!!! It IS him!!!!










We stayed and watched the Holiday Light Parade. HUGE crowds even though it was FREEZING!!!





















After the parade (well, after WE had seen enough) we all walked to Costa Vida to eat dinner.

A HO-HO time was had by all!!! I can't wait for next year!!!