The Best Part of NJ...

...is definitely hanging out with our pseudo-nephews! We miss you guys!

Christmas Travels

Keeper and I have just returned from a 2-week jaunt around the northeast. We flew into BWI late Friday night on the 19th and spent a whole week at my parents' house. I got some quality running (training for the upcoming 1/2!) done with Joy & Andrew which included 2 x Triple Crown, 1 long run of 14 miles, and some 5-6 mile neighborhood runs thrown in there. Our nephew/ godson got baptized at my home church on Sunday, December 21st. His eyes were wide open and watching everyone during the service and no tears were shed! What a cutie!

On Monday Keeper and I accompanied Jen and the little BB out to Somerset, PA to meet up for lunch with some friends who were visiting family in Ohio. Somerset was pretty much exactly in between us and in fairness to everyone, that's where we chose to meet. There wasn't much out there except a funny smell when we got out of the car...very mysterious.

We enjoyed the usual Christmas Eve festivities with my family. We had a big early Christmas Eve dinner with my immediate family (including husbands & boyfriends), then off to church for the Christmas Eve service. Jill was in the Christmas play and she was fantastic! We loved it. After church, we headed up to my grandparents' house in Hanover for some late night goodies and visting with aunt, uncle, cousins, and their significant others. Christmas day was my long run and then the WHOLE family came up to my parents' house. We had delicious food and it was so good to catch up with everyone I hadn't seen since last Christmas!

On the 26th, Keeper and I headed up to Boston to visit his side of the family for a few days. We picked up Corbin at a train station in NY, then went to his oldest brother's house in Winchester. We were so excited to play with our neice and nephews for a few days. They are awesome! We also got a quality visit in with Keeper's mother, who was visting from Florida. We did Christmas dinner with the Yimoyines on Saturday the 27th, then on Sunday I got a (short) run through Winchester in and Keeper and I headed into Boston to sightsee for a few hours.

We headed back to PA on Monday with a stop in NJ to visit and have dinner with Keeper's cousins and their kids. We had so much fun with them! We got to Jen's house late Monday night and stayed there until New Year's Eve. Keeper took a night off from my family to head into Brooklyn to visit an old friend and hang out with his brother again, while I stayed at Jen's and got to grab dinner and some shopping with my college roommate. Fun! I also got to spend quality time with the little BB.

We got back to my parents' house for New Year's Eve. We did our take-out Chinese food feast, followed by some games of Apples to Apples and a round of Master Detective Clue. Then, for the first time since college, I got up to my grandparents' house for New Year's day. We had pork, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes as well as a great visit with my dad's side of the family. Our last night on the east coast was spent packing and playing some games in front of the fire in my parents' basement. So cozy! We returned to AZ yesterday afternoon, despite a brief delay in Chicago.

One Week to Go...

So it has finally begun to feel like the holidays are here! Despite the abundance of Christmas lights/decorations in dirt covered lawns across the Valley of the Sun, I just wasn't feeling it this year. Once again, Keeper and I are tree-less because a) we are going to be gone for 2 whole weeks and b) we are moving (starting tonight!). But I am finally getting REALLY excited about the trip back east and finishing up my first semester of teaching for the school year.

I will not say the semester has "flown" by, but it has picked up a little in the past few weeks. I am finished with my final exam preparations. The review packets have been handed out and the exams themselves are photocopied and ready to go. Grades are almost done. My letters of recommendation for my seniors are finished. I am *even* planning ahead to the first week back and would love to get my classroom cleaned up a bit before I leave for vacation.

We have two tough games next week for soccer. I somehow got suckered into the "Secret Santa" this year with the girls but the gift has been bought. Thanks to a not-so-great job by the athletic director of rearranging our schedule, my team had two whole weeks of no games (only to be followed by 2+ games a week for the whole month of January). I have a great group of girls this season and they are learning a lot and are a ton of fun to be around. Next Thursday's game is basically in Mexico (right next to it), so we are taking a charter bus for the 5+ hour drive down there as soon as finals are over on Thursday morning. We won't get back until after 1am and then I have to be back at school Friday morning for teacher checkout. Nice. I am even going to squeeze in a much-needed haircut and doctor's appointment before heading to the east coast next Friday.

We are so excited to spend time with family! Our godson is getting baptized next Sunday in PA and we can't wait to head up to Boston to meet the newest little Yimoyines after Christmas! I swear I won't even complain about the cold weather (much) when I get there. On a side note, I would like to say that winter in Phoenix is absolutely lovely. It's the perfect running weather. The sky is just amazing in the mornings and evenings (bright pink, purple, blue, orange). It's cool enough to wear a sweater or light jacket in the mornings/evenings, but you're still good to go with shorts and T-shirt in the afternoon. Love it!

Holiday Visit

Posts are scarce because soccer started a month ago... but we had family visitor last week so I wanted to post an update and some pics.

Joy made her first visit out to Phoenix just in time for .... 2 days of rainy weather. It never rains here! She flew in last Tuesday afternoon (the 25th) and made it in time to see my team win the first game of the season! She came to school with me Wednesday for a half day and then we had the afternoon off to go for a run and hit up Pita Jungle for lunch. We ran a 10 mile race on Thanksgiving out in Peoria. The weather was weird for Phoenix, really muggy and humid. Afterwards , Keeper treated us to a delicious wild boar leg for Thanksgiving dinner. It sounds kind of weird but it was DELICIOUS! I made the veggies and mashed potatoes and we opted for wine for dessert instead of pumpkin pie ( I couldn't top my Grandma's if I tried, anyway). Friday morning we all headed out to the Superstition Mountains and did some hiking in Lost Dutchman State Park. The hike wasn't too strenuous but we got some awesome views and Chloe was very well behaved around the other hikers and dogs. In the evening Joy and I went to Barnes and Noble for a few hours because the club I advise at school (NHS) was doing some gift wrapping as a fundraiser so we supervised that for awhile. We had a pretty low key weekend. I was happy to have some company on my runs and we both spent the better part of Sunday (after church) being lazy. Monday was back to school and Joy ran my practice for me. The girls weren't used to a tough practice but they learned a lot and we need more practices like that because are next game is against a really tough team. I am so glad she came out for a week to see us!
In other news, Keeper is in the midst of midterms, I am in the last push before finals, and we are gearing up for a tough soccer game on the 15th. We are also signing a new lease next week for a new apartment. It's a nicer, newer, larger place in a better neighborhood. Let the packing begin!

Fall Visit

We finally have some visitors for a few days! Mom and Jill came out Friday night and we've been super-busy the past few days... Saturday morning we went to the Heard Museum downtown and were treated to a tour given by Native American (one Hopi and one Navajo) high school students as well as a Mexican art fair in the courtyard of the museum. The Heard Museum is one of those things in Phoenix that I've wanted to do since we moved here and I finally got to! It's a Native American history, culture and art museum that was well-worth the admission fee. After a healthy lunch at Zoe's and a stop at World Market, Mom and I head up to north Scottsdale for my 2nd AZSR race.

I was a little put out by the 4pm race start (who wants to run a race at 4pm?) and the location was really far from where we live downtown but the course was nice and flat. We were doing a 10k this time instead of a 5k and most of the kids ran well. I ran a 52:30 and ended up winning my age group; Mom got 2nd in hers. We came home to get Jill and Keeper (who was at a medical business conference all weekend) and went out for quality Mexican food. Yum. Yesterday morning we took Chloe for a nice long walk, went to church and then headed up to Cave Creek for our horseback ride at Spur Cross Stables. We had made a 3pm reservation for an hour and half trail ride. As we were loading up the horses we heard thunder rumbling and saw very dark clouds... but we started the ride anyway. I was glad that we had our own private guide just for the three of us instead of being included in the group of 10 people who were there at the same time. We rode off on the trail (that's me on Diamond, Mom on Dustin, and Jill on Hershey) and the clouds just kept getting darker. Our cowboy, Ian (or Slim), told us story after story and we noticed lightning and then we started to get wet. After a while, even Ian got spooked and we had to turn around and cut our ride short. He informed us that all the metal parts of a western saddle made us "human lightning rods" and that he'd actually seen a horse get struck by lightning before and it "wasn't too pretty". We followed him back to the ranch and the owners were kind enough to reschedule us for Monday morning. We drove back downtown with a stop at Dreamy Draw Park to watch the sunset.

We got up bright and early today and were at the ranch again for our 8:30am ride. It was a beautiful, cool, sunny morning and we had a different guide this time. I rode Hershey, Mom again got Dustin, and Jill rode Handsome. We had a fabulous ride and saw all sorts of wildlife (deer, jackrabbits, birds, etc). I absolutely loved being out in the "real" desert. It is so peaceful and quiet. I hadn't ridden a horse since middle school (probably) or even earlier but it was really fun and I will definitely go back to Spur Cross Stables again. The people (and horses) were fabulous. We followed up our ride with a hearty breakfast and a walk around Frontier Town in Cave Creek. We headed back down to Phoenix in time for the first day of soccer tryouts at my school.

Make no mistake: Radiology is every bit as boring as it sounds

Happy Halloween