Valentine's Day 2012

Happy Valentine's Day!

I made cupcakes for work. My sister provided the animal print cupcake liners. I used funfetti cake mix, and cherry flavored frosting, plus gold colored sugar crystals. They weren't the prettiest cupcakes ever made, but they were super yummy. 

 



Jeff and I didn't have any special plans for Valentine's Day. He brought flowers over to my apartment. I gave him a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's and baked him some cookies and gave him some candy.

 

 

Not a big production, but a niceValentine's Day.

Couch to 5K

It's my goal to enter and finish a Tough Mudder race. Tough Mudder is a 10-13 mile obstacle course. I'm overweight and haven't run in years, so this is a significant goal, that's going to take some time to accomplish. 

 

My first step towards this goal is getting off the couch and running in a 5k. Fate stepped in recently, when I attended my weekly Weight Watcher's meeting. One of the participants passed out a sign up sheet for a 5k race to benefit their school. As part of this race, the school had volunteers that were offering Saturday morning workouts that will follow the Couch to 5K running program. So, I signed up and had my first "run" in years.

 

At the end of the workout they handed out these cute (couch) potatoes with a running shoe printout with a positive message.

 

 

 

Hopefully, this is a first small step in a bigger accomplishment.

Christmas 2012

Christmas was good and uneventful this year. I went home and visited my parents. That about sums up my Christmas vacation.

 

We received an art print at work this year, as a present from our company.

 

Here are some Christmas photos of the pets:

Penny in her Santa Dress

 

Ichabod in front of the tree

Birdie under the tree

Girl's Weekend 2012 - Chicago

Girl's Weekend started with a 5 hour train trip. I love the train. The seats are big, comfortable and there is also a lot of leg room. In addition, they have an electrical socket for each seat, so you can charge your entertainment devices while you ride.

 

My friend Stacia and her twins arrived to pick me up and we headed back to her place to wait for J.J. to show up. Stacia's twins, Avery and Morgan are 8 weeks old. She's gotten pretty good at juggling them both at the same time.

 

Avery is in front and Morgan is in back

Stacia holding Avery with Morgan in her lap

We had some wine, cheese and crackers while waiting for the girls to be fed and get settled down. Then we headed out for some dinner while her husband Matt stayed home with the girls. We ate at The Holiday Inn (the restaurant, not the hotel chain) and I enjoyed some "312 beer" for the first time. After dinner, J.J. and I headed back to the hotel and got an early night sleep.

 

Saturday, we had lunch at The Haymaker which is a microbrewery near Stacia's apartment. The food was good, but the beer was better. I had 3 different samples, one port and two wheat ales, with my pizza for lunch. Afterwards, Matt took one baby and we got the other. Avery came with us in her baby bjorn. She's still too small for anyone to see her head over the top, so basically she was all cuddled up in her own little cocoon, except for her feet dangling out. We went to Macy's and did some shopping and enjoy the windows. Afterwards, we headed to Christkindlmarket. It was awesome with the food tents, product stalls, and decorations. Unfortunately, it was super crowded. I hate crowds. The make me crabby.  At some of the stalls, they were selling a souvenir boot cup, but the lines were terrible. Stac was at the head of our little group, finding a path through the crowd with Avery in her Baby Bjorn leading the way. She got some info that the line in the warming tent was short and moved fast. I'm assuming this was because the weather was great, there was no need for the sauna-like warming tent and therefore the crowd in there was much smaller than outside and people kept wanting to leave because of the heat. So, we got our Gluhwein in a boot. Gluhwein is warm red wine that tastes similar to wassail. I don't like red wine, but I like Gluhwein.

Stacia, Avery, and J.J.

Souvenir Boot Cup

We went to El Diablo for dinner and met up with Stacia's sister, Erin, and their friend Hany. We had some good Mexican food and it was nice to catch up.

Stacia and Me

I'm average height and Stacia and J.J. are taller, so I wore some hooker shoes to gain some height advantage. I was still shorter than J.J. wearing the shoes! Life is unfair sometimes.

Stacia and J.J.                                       Hooker Shoes

One of the fun things about the restaurant is that it has a mechanical bill. I decided to give it a try.

Me on the bull

 

It turns out I'm not very good at it. I'm not sure exactly how long I was up there, but it was probably pretty close to 1.5 seconds. If you ever get a chance to try it, I'd recommend it. It was good for a laugh.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel. My feet hurt so bad that I ended up walking the last block in my socks.

The next morning we had breakfast and then Stac and J.J. walked me back to the train station. It was a fun weekend and hopefully we'll be able to get together and do it again soon.

Vacation 2012 - Day 6

Today we had a 9 am start time to go to breakfast together as a family. I was ready to go 10 minutes early and instead of being rewarded with 10 minutes of computer time, we left 10 minutes early. That'll teach me to be early. I think that just proved I'm right when I show up late.



We went to some pancake house place that my parents swear we went to when we were little, but I didn't remember it and neither did my brother or sister. Everyone else seemed to enjoy their breakfast of pecan waffles, and pecan pancakes and french toast. I had Eggs Benedict. It wasn't that great. The hollandaise sauce was really good which is usually the key to the dish, but instead the poached eggs were weird and they put it on crunchy toast and gristly ham.

My mom, my brother, my sister-in-law and nephews went to Pigeon Forge to get my oldest nephew cowboy boots. He did really well and got a new pair of brown ones, even though he wanted red ones at first.

My dad, my sister and I headed to downtown Gatlinburg for some walking around and shopping. We parked our car at the Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers and then took the trolley downtown.

This is my sister and dad taking a break while shopping. That's one nice thing about Gatlinburg, they put benches and rocking chairs everywhere so that you can get a little rest before continuing on.

We shopped for about an hour before my brother and his crew called to try to meet up so that we could all go to the Art and Craft Fair at the Convention Center together. Before we left, we agreed we would meet at the Convention Center. When my brother called he decided we should meet at some random place on the street. He was on the other side of the street and passed us up while walking to the Convention Center. By the time we met up, they had all checked out the Arts and Craft Fair and my dad, sister and I had lost 45 minutes of our day waiting around for them. So this led to a big fight when we met up. My brother and his crew headed back to the cabin, and my sister's crew continued shopping. After the anger from the fight dissipated we had a good time checking things out.

The day was bright and beautiful, and then suddenly it started raining with bee bee size hail. So we hid out in a shop for a few minutes before continuing on our way. After another 15 minutes the day cleared up completely.

We got back to the cabin around 2 pm and then it was time for egg dying. We did the eggs old school using vinegar, water, food color and crayons instead of buying a kit.

Then my nephew hid the eggs around the cabin. We came up with 11 eggs after the Easter Egg Hunt was over and if you ever ask me, I'm going to swear that was the amount we started with.

The rest of the night we spent packing to leave tomorrow. We are supposed to be out the door by 8 am and then we are going to the Flea Market before heading to Lexington, KY and going to the UK bookstore. After that, we head home.

Big Bogey still isn't doing well, so hopefully he can hold out until Saturday morning.

I got farther into Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. So far, his mom has died, his dad told him vampires are real and he's killed a vampire and looking to kill more.

Vacation 2012-Day 5

Today was shopping day, so we headed out early for the Tanger outlets. My oldest nephew didn't want to go, so he stayed home with Grandma, and the rest of us headed out. We spent about two and a half hours total shopping instead of a marathon session, but that's okay, we still had fun. I got a new coach purse, some new clothes, shoes, and bras. It was a successful day.

It seemed like a long day, but that was about it. I did a two loads of laundry, took a nap, and made the hard boiled eggs for egg coloring tomorrow.

We are supposed to go to some Pancake House for breakfast tomorrow because my oldest nephew likes pancakes, and then my brother and his family are heading to Pigeon Forge to buy my nephew new cowboy boots. My sister and I are headed to downtown Gatlinburg to look in shops and my brother and his family will meet up with us later. Then when we get home, we are coloring the eggs. At least that's the plan right now. Who knows how it will play out tomorrow.

This is our cabin we are staying in.

This is the view looking down our road. I think it looks pretty.

This is the Hillbilly Golf place that I remember going to when I was little with my brother and sister. I can't believe it's still there.

I've only gotten about a hundred pages into Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, it seems good, but I haven't gotten to any good parts yet.

We are heading home earlier than planned. My mom is worried about her dog, so we are driving all the way back in one day, so that they can get Bogey from the kennel first thing Saturday morning.

Vacation 2012 - Day 4

I got breakfast this morning. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. It was nice of them to actually care about me.
When it came time to make plans for the day, we split up. My parents, sister and I headed to Pigeon Forge to pick up a prescription for my sister that she didn't get refilled before she left. Great planning there, sis. Then we went to The Christmas Store. I spent way too much money on ornaments. Especially since normally, I only buy Christmas ornaments in the two weeks after Christmas, so that I can get the best deals. These seemed really expensive when you normally get ornaments for 75% off.

My brother and his family made their way to Pigeon Forge as well, a little bit later. We met up at this place that had two go-karts tracks, mini-golf, water bumper cars, bungee jumping, an arcade for big kids and an area for smaller kids that had another arcade, mini-train, merry-go-round, etc. It was a really neat place, but one of the rides was called "The Wild Willy" and the announcer would say at the end of every turn "I hope you enjoyed your ride on the Wild Willy". It seemed a little pervy at a kid's place, but okay, whatever.

That was our big activity for the day. After that, we headed back to the cabin and had fried chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and rolls. Then I took a nap. My youngest nephew has been having a problem sleeping because he doesn't like the pack and play, but I think he finally got exhausted enough from the last few days and will hopefully get a good night's sleep. He's been a little crabby, but he's such a happy baby that even his crabby isn't that bad.

Tomorrow we are outlet shopping at Tanger outlets. I thought it was going to be a girl's only trip, but apparently everyone is going. The only person with a shorter patience level for shopping than my nephews is my brother. He's been warned he can't hover or get a crappy attitude, but no one believes he'll be good.

Big Bogey seems to be doing better, as well. The kennel says he's eating some canned food and he's beginning to wag his tail when one of the kennel worker's goes into his cage to talk to him. He's still not moving off his safety spot on the quilt, but as least he's eating and beginning to come around. It's sad he's so miserable, though. He'll probably finally be adjusted on the day my parent's go to pick him up.

I haven't gotten any farther into Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I left the book at home again today.