November.
The highlight of this month was, for sure, my Mom and Dave coming down to visit for Thanksgiving. The night that they arrived, was a very special night, as Dave presented my Mom with a beautiful ring, and they became officially engaged! It meant so much to me to be present for such an exciting event and, needless to say, I am very excited! Congrats Mom and Dave!! Love you guys! :)
With so much to be thankful for, we celebrated Thanksgiving a couple of days early (as I had to work on the actual day of Thanksgiving). I have a new found respect for cooking holiday meals -- what a lot of work! We were cooking all day! But, if I do say so myself, the meal turned out delicious!
To document the excitement of the season (and, let's be honest, we were feeling the pressure to take a Christmas Card-worthy shot), we went over to the park that is just behind our house, to take some pictures before Mom and Dave left.
 |
| Isn't Emmilou the most photogenic dog you have ever seen?! Mom and Dave, you guys look pretty good, too. :) |
 |
| And the picture of us with our dogs...where we look like we are practically strangling them in order to get them to sit still for the picture. |
 |
| Red Door! |
Congrats, Mom and Dave! Can't wait for the Big Day! :)
December.
Ry and I had made the decision, several months in advance, that we weren't going to travel back to Colorado for Christmas but, rather, spend it at our new home in Arizona. Regardless, I started to have a twinge of sadness as the holiday approached, but it actually turned out to be very wonderful.
For starters, we entered the First Annual Gingerbread House Extravaganza with all of Ryan's side of the family competing by emailing pictures/videos of their house, as we could not all be together for the festivity. However, due to some *cough, cough* spiteful family members, I believe our gingerbread house was disqualified. This is obviously because it was too beautiful to be in the same competition as the other lowly submissions. Bitterness aside, we had a blast decorating the house, joined by our awesome friends Jessica and Andy, while watching Elf. "Buddy the elf. What's your favorite color?"
 |
| Jessica and Andy! |
I mean, com' on people, we obviously should have won. :)
It was fun to spend Christmas in our own house, I have to admit. Ryan's favorite gift: a new bike. Sarah's favorite gift: fuzzy, warm slippers from LL Bean! And we again joined up with Andy and Jessica, Christmas evening to have a yummy dinner and play games.
A few days following Christmas, Steve, Diane and Hayley drove down to spend a few days with us. It was great to have visitors again... I love having a full, loud house! As Steve and Ryan set out to accomplish household missions (like refurbishing and antiquing an ugly $25 Craiglist old dresser and making it look awesome shabby-chic!), Diane, Hayley and I had fun hanging out and exploring Prescott.
 |
| Spending some time with the favorite grandchild. ;) |
It all started a few months ago when a friend from our small group told me I should run the P.F. Chang's Half Marathon. I half-begrudgingly, half-excitedly signed up, and the "training" began. I then called my mom, and told her she should run it with me because, ya know, misery loves company. She said she would.
Training did not go so well for mainly 2 reasons: 1. I work a bajillion hours of a very physical job every week which, as it turns out, is not conducive to allowing for 2-3 hour runs on a regular basis. 2. I developed really bad foot pain, causing me to purchase 2 new pairs of running shoes, neither of which eased the pain, and trial various other remedies, none of which worked. Can I just say how frustrating it is when you are a physical therapist who's job it is to heal other people of such injuries, and you can't figure out what is going on with yourself?! Anyway, out of pure desperation, I returned to my 7ish year old running shoes and was able to again start training, pain at least minimized.
January 15th arrived, and on a beautiful Phoenix morning, we set off with 1 goal in mind: finish. Mom and I had fun running and the miles actually ticked off rather quickly and before we knew it we were at the finish line, roughly 2 hours 20 min later... no record, obviously, but we had a lot of fun celebrating with high-fives at every mile!
There were several comical signs displayed by various spectators along the route. My personal favorite said: "Worst. Parade. Ever." Clever. Ha ha.
 |
| Jogging with 15,000 other people is kind of fun! |
 |
| I'm quite pleased to say that we beat this gentleman. |
It has been a great couple of "Blog-worthy" months. :)
