Christmas is coming, ready or not!

I can't believe Christmas is almost here...not sure why, but we definitely did not bring our A-game to the Christmas preparations for this year.  Maybe because we'll be in Atlanta visiting my family, or maybe because we're doing very limited gifts, or maybe just because we've been really busy between work, me trying to get in shape, and managing two terriers instead of one (which also puts some restrictions on the decorations because our house is a constant wrestling ring for the dogs).  

We got our tree within the first week of December, and after some debate and research, we ended up sticking with a real tree.  It's probably the best looking real tree we've had, but there's been a slight problem - it has not drunk hardly any water.  I mean, I've had to water it maybe once since we put it up.  Crazy.  But, the leaves aren't falling off too badly, and it only just started smelling kind of weird.  

And, we finally took our Christmas picture earlier this week, which means I'm super late getting Christmas cards out.  I thought about just doing Valentines Day cards or something, but it's fun to dress the dogs up for the Christmas card :)  This year, our card wasn't quite as creative as normal, but we don't have Brooks trained quite as well as Jefferson for the photo shoots - even though, in our family Christmas picture, Brooks looked at the camera every time, while the only picture Jefferson looked at the camera for turned out blurry.  I was hoping to do something funny with Santa and his new elf, so I found a elf-ish shirt for Brooks at Walmart.  The dogs HATE wearing clothes for the most part, so they usually do funny things like just stare at us spitefully and don't move until we take off their shirt.  Works ok for pictures though :)

Jefferson played dead when I put the elf shirt on him

This was Brooks' reaction to wearing the Santa outfit

Angry terriers

Family Christmas picture :)

Being good by the tree

 Coming down the chimney

PS - today, I am 30.  Doesn't feel any different, but I can definitely remember thinking 30 was old, and I've gotten some comments recently (when being carded) about wanting to look like me when they're 30.  That's nice but also makes me feel old.  It will be weird when I have to fill out something age-group related too.  I'm hoping this will be a great year and that God will have some good things in store for my 30s.

movember & a big anniversary

this year, billy decided to partake in the annual manly tradition of "movember" - basically a whole bunch of guys (celebrities included) take the month of november off from shaving and try to raise awareness about men's health issues and money to go toward various foundations involved with prostate cancer and other men-specific illnesses and health concerns.  billy didn't raise any money, but he definitely made a statement with his facial hair  :)  he actually stopped shaving a week late, after we got back from nyc, but he made up for that by waiting until december 2nd to shave some of the facial hair off (and finished up on the 4th).  lucky me, i got to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary with a sketchy-looking-mustached man.  haha!


here are a few pictures documenting the progression...

clean-shaven on our wedding day (had to throw this one in for the anniversary :))

five years, two dogs, and one beard later...this could be a cute christmas card picture if we could somehow photoshop the background!

start of the surfin santa 10 miler - team hoyt folks

i kept telling him he looked like he should be in the 70s...

...or just that he looked super shady (i actually thought he looked good in the earlier stages of his beard growth, but once it was down to the mustache, i was not a fan :))

christmas terriers

love this of brooks :)

costume contest after the race...

one word - awesome.  and even more impressive that he ran the race like this.  for those of you who don't get the costume, check this out.

pre-second race of the day...we headed to odu after the beach for a 5k benefiting the arthritis foundation, a cause very important to us!  billy won the race, which was exciting, and even more exciting was that nasty stache - not :)

and he still didn't shave it by our anniversary dinner.  we ate and drank at the yardhouse in va beach, which worked out very well, as it ended up being at the base of the westin where we were staying.  lots of beers on tap and very good food - think taco mac with a better atmosphere and much better food.

j terrier loungin at the westin (LOVED that it was pet friendly without a fee!)

 and it's going away...i think he kind of looks foreign here. or like he's trying to lure kids into his van with candy. jefferson doesn't seem to mind though. and after that, it was gone. probably until next year.

so we had a great anniversary weekend and feel very blessed to have spent a great 5 years of marriage together!  it has flown by so quickly!  and, i love that we're able to have so much fun being together and doing things we both enjoy, which can be rare for couples :)

thanksgiving 2011

this year, as we had done in 2009, billy and i hosted his family at our house for thanksgiving.  i ended up doing all of the cooking while billy did some work on our house, so it was a very productive day for all :)  we had a good time, but it's definitely different from thanksgiving with my own family...partially because i miss being with them (i haven't seen most of them since early august), and partially because i love having a lot going on and a lot of people to celebrate thanksgiving with.  with my family, you never know who's going to show up, we do traditional and non-traditional thanksgiving food, and there's just more going on.  we'll have that for christmas, though, and i think it's good to split holidays between families when you're married and don't live in the same place as both families.  
it was nice, however, being able to relax at our house and have downtime with just the two of us and the terriers.  
billy worked the friday after thanksgiving, and i was able to have super productive day around the house, cleaning and making food for the tailgate on saturday.  i made elk sliders, buffalo chicken dip, and cake pops with some leftover german chocolate cake :)  we went to c-ville for what ended up being a terrible football game, but we did enjoy our time up there as always.  if we could both get jobs up there, we'd love to move back there...may have to start looking more!  


here are a couple of pics from the weekend...

our little family pre-thanksgiving meal

tailgating before the game

nyc 2011

a couple of weeks ago, we headed to new york for the marathon.  i encouraged billy to run it while he was in marathon shape and could easily qualify, since it's one of the bucket list marathons for a lot of runners.  plus, after spending a weekend there with my mom and sister last year, i was anxious to get back! 
in retrospect, i think for future race travels, we'll try and travel the day before the race and stick around a couple of days after the race rather than fitting in our touristy activities while billy's getting ready for the race (which includes resting and being off his feet - not things that come easily in new york).  
we had a great time and were fortunate to find super cheap flights up there and stay in a very generous friend's apartment while he was out of town for the weekend.  so, our trip was on a great budget, which is always nice - and good for our possible anniversary trip because we'll have more money to spend :)
we took the early flight friday morning and were in the city by around 9.  then we headed to the expo, went to times square, and ended up at rockefeller center.  we went into the nbc store, which was great (got an awesome lil sebastian magnet), and we decided to do the nbc studio tour after that.  we had a very good dinner that night at a cuban restaurant in the east village where we were staying - cafecito.  would definitely recommend the place!  plus, it was close to josh's apartment, which meant not walking around much in the cold and surprisingly windy weather.  

picture at the expo with desi davila, one of the fastest american women

times square

budweiser billboard :)

30 rock

ice skating rink at rockefeller center...right after this, we witnessed a proposal on the ice :)

next morning, we went on a run around tompkins square park and then headed uptown to catch the grayline bus tour.  i would recommend that as well.  it's very informative, nice to see a lot of the city without being on our feet a lot (which was good for the runners in the group :)), and had pretty convenient stops.  we stopped around central park and went into the plaza, fao schwartz, niketown, and a few other places before catching the bus back toward the east village.  that night, we had dinner at perbacco, a little italian place in the east village   the food was pretty good (billy's lasagna was better than my risotto), but i thought it was pricey for the portion.  plus, their bottles of beer were $7!  i guess new york is just expensive, but we had definitely gotten more food the night before for half the price!  that night was early to bed after getting all of billy's stuff situated for the next morning.  

apollo theater from the grayline bus

harlem

met museum

madison square garden...another bud billboard :)

empire state building on our bus tour

i caught a cab with billy early sunday morning to go to the staton island ferry and looking back, i actually could have ridden the ferry with him towards the start.  i guess i'll know if he ever does it again.  instead, i headed back to the apartment and then toward the subway to go meet some new friends to watch the race with.  unfortunately the train was down, but i was able to catch the grayline bus up towards where i was meeting the girls.  it was really nice to have people to watch the race with (one of my best friends who lives in california now had a friend whose boyfriend was running in the marathon, so we coordinated to meet up and watch the race together) and talk to during the time spent waiting for our runners to come by.  we got to see the guys at mile 16.5 or so and then headed toward the park to watch around mile 25.5.  there were LOTS of people everywhere, which was fun, but i'll definitely be more prepared in terms of spectating strategies if billy does this race again.  it was kind of that way with boston - the first time, it was tough to figure out logistics for meeting up, etc. but has been easy ever since.  
we met up outside the natural history museum and got on the train right there to head back to the east village.     on our way back, we stopped at katz's deli, which i guess is pretty famous, but again, we thought it was pricey for what it was.  i think the stage door deli that my mom, kel, and i went to last year was better - not sure about prices, but they were probably around the same.  then, we went back to josh's apartment and packed up our stuff to go to the hilton garden inn in the garment district.  i got our room there for a steal online, so that was exciting, and it was a nice hotel in a very good location.  after we checked in, we walked to macy's to see the christmas decorations and ride the old wooden escalators, and then we went to the "top of the rock" which was lots of fun (great views at night!!).  we walked down to times square, which is great to see after dark with all of the billboards and crazy lights, and we ate dinner at an irish pub there - o'lunneys.  we had a special treat of eating right next to the owner, who so nicely bought us a round of drinks to celebrate the marathon.  we also met some people from norfolk, so that was random. 

around 16.5

final part of the race...uphill (even though this picture makes the incline look a little steeper than it was!)

around 25.5...no heel striking going on :)

macy's christmas decorations!

30 rock at night...so pretty!

empire state building from our hotel room

top of the rock

zamboni

times square at night

nuts...this was taken for one of billy's co-workers who told us we had to try the nuts. they smelled great, but we didn't get any :)

we relaxed, headed to bed, and got up the next day for our flight back home.  
so, it was a great trip, and we have another long list of things to do next time - 9-11 memorial, running in central park (not racing :)), possibly a museum, broadway show, statue of liberty, walking the brooklyn bridge, and some other restaurants to try out.  

verazzano narrows bridge (aka race start) from the plane