To be continued....

Will post in a little while. Taking a break while we're out of the state for a bit. Updates to be continued... :) No worries.

For Kicks and Giggles

So I went up to the hill today to get a few runs in. It was COLD! This was the first time that my feet actually felt cold. My hands were icy almost the whole time I was there but it was still fun. I attempted to video myself going down a green. Didn't feel like I was good enough to attempt it on a blue yet, maybe another time. If you're able to watch the video I warn you...you could possibly get motion sickness...I had that camera going all which a way! Forgive me :) Also, there were a couple things I said on there that are pretty hard to hear being: 1) oh bumpy! (near the beginning of the video) 2) there's a black (when I turn the camera to the right thinking I'm showing you a run to my right, oops, all you get are trees) 3) merging! (as I go zinging out into a wider area of the run) 4) pretty view, hope you can see it, not sure 5) I fell here last time...I think that's about the only things I said. Things of note...the guy that I pass that is going up the mountain was cross country skiing up the mountain in order to ski down it. The hill lets you go for free if you don't use the lift, so if you can hike to the top you can go down for free...in my opinion, that's just too much work! :) Maybe next time I should come up with a way to keep the camera attached to my body instead of holding on to it and letting it move wildly about as I go down the hill :) Like I said, it's pretty rough to watch so...view at your own risk! :)





And because I've felt my creative side stirring (if you know me at all, you know my creative side is about the size of the tip of a strand of hair) I got my drawing on...notice how the thing I'm drawing is nicely blurred in this picture? Yeah, that's on purpose :)

From the looks of this, I need to use orange more often :)

Skype

I love that I have Skype. It makes loved ones who are so far away seem that much closer. Just had a long skype date with my sister and her hubby. I love them very much and it was nice to see their faces. She's going to kill me for posting this but I just had to do it!

Brian was sitting to her left. It was a good conversation.

Me goofing off, she took this and sent it to me.

Looking forward to more Skype dates with friends and family...speaking of, I've got another date with Ash in 12 minutes! Yay! So if anyone is interested in skyping with me, just let me know! It sure would be fun. You know, since I'm so busy sitting at home right now, waiting on interviews for a job and all :)

Monday Monday

It's Monday. It's snowing. It's cloudy outside.

It's cool in the house. It's warm on our heated floor. It's fun to practice my drawing skills. 

It's distracting to crochet a white scarf. It's good to think on the Lord.

It's small group night tonight in Los Alamos. It's expensive to buy last minute plane tickets. 

It's worth it to do it to see family and be with ones you love.

It's less than 4 days until Jack and I head to NC to stay for over a week. 

It's exactly 12 days until my 29th birthday. It's necessary to keep our mind stayed on Him. 

It's important to be always in prayer.

It's Monday today.

Around these here parts

Jack and I had a fairly relaxing weekend so far. Friday we had some friends down to Santa Fe and we headed over to Bobcat Bite for some yummy dinner. Then we scoured the entire city (I'm serious, we went to Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, video rental places, grocery stores) to find the movie Nacho Libre. Jack and I have never watched it and our friends swore it's hilarious so we wanted to have a fun movie night together. Fail. We never found it anywhere! Feeling slightly defeated but not letting our spirits sink we headed back to the condo and watched part of our National Geographic Planet Earth documentaries. Not funny like Nacho but amazing none-the-less. Then we played a rousing game of Scattergories...ok, maybe it was only rousing for me...Jack was about to pass out and J&K were struggling to come up with words with the hard letters we were rolling but for some reason I was on fire and was shooting out words left and right. :) We finally headed to bed sometime after midnight and slept soundly.

Saturday morning we all woke up and we treated our friends to some Galloway style breakfast sandwiches (English muffin topped with a cooked egg and some cheese) and sat around chatting for a while. They headed out shortly after to run some errands in the Fe before heading back over to LA and then Jack and I decided to tackle the project of hanging curtains on our two 9 feet tall sliding doors in our living/dining rooms. We knew we needed something up for 3 reasons 1) the sun beating into the room in the afternoon made it almost unbearable to even want to walk into the room much less hang out or try to do anything in there, 2) we just bought new leather couches (back in October) and could tell that the sun was trying to dry out the leather and cause it to crack...needed to nip that in the bud asap, and 3) we needed a little bit of privacy. Even though no one lives behind us it seemed a bit more comforting to have the option to cover those massive window/doors. Not having a ladder to reach as high as we needed to get to place the rods we improvised using our coffee table with a stool placed on top of it. Dangerous, yes, but it worked! So now we are the proud owners of HUGE panels of curtains that thankfully do exactly what we hoped they would :) I'm currently sitting in the living room enjoying typing this post without the sun beating down on me and causing me to be unable to see my screen. Woohoo!

Jack working precariously on the stool.

The hardware.

Finished product! Yay, take that blazing Sun!

Another view. We put up the others to the left of these.

And just for fun, this was from my solo trip up to the hill last Thursday. Fresh powder again, yay!

Valle Canyon Hike among other things

Little update on this roller coaster we call life... :)

Let's see...Friday we hit the slopes (think I already blogged about that...don't worry won't bore you with the details all over again) and had a good ol' time.

Saturday Jack and I...hmm, I can not for the life of me remember what we did on Saturday! Must have been uber exciting, let me tell you. (after a good 10 minutes of not thinking about it, I've come back because I remember it!) Jack and I headed out for a quick run, it was tough. Of course. Then after that...I draw a blank, again. Maybe by the end of the post I'll remember.

Sunday we headed up to Los Alamos for church and enjoyed yet another excellent sermon by Pastor Mark on Matthew 17:14-23 "Faith as a Mustard Seed" which was so spot on exactly what the Lord wanted us to hear because He knew we would be putting what we learned to the test in a matter of days! After church we headed over to our friends' house in order to catch some of the NFL play-off games. What a blast they are to hang out with! We played a fun game that Jeremy named Woobles (because it's a wooden, marble game) that is similar to the game Sorry. After spending a few hours there Jack and I headed back to Santa Fe to finally hang some pictures around our apartment! Dixon came over to hang out for a bit so we watched some sports while Jack used his new little WeberQ. The chicken turned out grrrreat!

Above the fireplace.

Above the light switches.

Above the buffet.

Above the reading nook.

 Jack did a great job :) with me being the badgering wife saying up a little, to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right, now dip...ahem. Anyways, we had a good time and now our house feels more homey to me without all the blank walls, woohoo!

Monday morning Jack had the day off for MLK so we headed back up to Los Alamos to meet up with Jeremy and Kimi to try out a hike in the area. We got this sweet hike book from my awesome sister-in-law so Kimi and I chose which hike we thought would be the most fun. We arrived (after missing the turn and having to u-turn) and hopped out to start off on our adventure. The book said the hike was an out and back 5.6 mile trek. We made it 3 miles in and never saw the end so we decided to stop right there, eat our lunch and head back down the trail. The trail was snow covered and we climbed about 1400 feet so it was no easy walk in the park. We were a bit cold and tired by the end (none of us are quite adjusted to the altitude quite yet) and we headed back to J&K's for some hanging out before small group.

All smiles at the start of the hike!

Snow covered trail.

Which way do we go?

Trudging through!

Umm, did we take a wrong turn? Analyzing the book for directions.

Jeremy's ears got cold, good thing I packed my fuzzy hat!!

Almost lunch time! It was so nice in the sun.

The never ending trail. :)

After hanging out for a bit Jack and I received some pretty tough news. So thankful for Kimi and Jeremy and the fast and strong friendship that has been forged all ready with them. They were so great with us, letting us talk through the news we heard, prayed with us and were gracious supporters of us! We hung out with them and then we all headed to small group. What a great small group it was!! The one we visited before our Christmas break "multiplied" because it had gotten so large so Monday night was our first night as a "new" group together. It was instant comfort that I felt walking in there. So thankful! We were discussing the first chapter of the book called "Why Small Group" which talks about the necessity, importance, and structure of what small group is really all about. I felt like it was a great thing to be discussing for our first meeting of the year to make sure we are all on the same track about why we are meeting together. Thankful that God has so quickly helped Jack and me get plugged into a small group, make new friends and even provide accountability and discipleship partners for us!  It is wonderful being part of a small church but I'm also thankful that this church has a wide range of age groups which helps when you are looking for sound, Biblical, wise advise.

Yesterday Jack and I were able to spend some time praying together which was good. Also, we've been praying (and so have many faithful friends, thank you!) for me to get a job. Last night I received a call from the HR at the local hospital in LA wanting to talk about my interest in the job I applied for. She will be passing my information on to the managers who have positions to fill so that in itself was an answer to prayer! Now we will continue to pray that the right manager wants to hire me and that the Lord would be preparing my co-workers for us to work together! Thankful :) Later that night we wanted to relax so we plopped on the couch with a nice oven baked pizza and watched the first movie of Lord of the Rings. It was just what we needed at the time...too bad by the time we got tired and were ready for bed we still had an hour to go in the movie! Guess we'll have to finish that later. Taking each day as they come for we know that each day has enough trouble for itself, trying not to worry about the future or let the past haunt us.

Prayer

Jack and I have been, together, desiring to grow in our prayer life. I think God was preparing us. Praying right now for stuff going on that I beg each of you reading this to pray along with us. We know that God is powerful, sovereign, mighty, Holy, good, our friend, our judge, our help in time of need. Praising God for his infinite wisdom! Praying in faith, even faith as small as a mustard seed. Praying for mountains to move. So to all the prayer warriors out there, let's go to "battle" together. Pray in the Spirit. Thank you.

Fun day on the slopes...

Jack coming down the blue at the ski hill. He did a great job. And he didn't really fall at the end, he was stopping near me to wait for me to go down the hill because he knows I don't like going by myself when he's around :) He told me after watching the video that he needs to go faster. Whatever :) He's fast. Usually by the time I look up as I start going down he's already at the bottom!! :) This was our last run of the day. Thankfully we both made it down the mountain today with very few falls. We even traveled up to 2nd highest peak!



This video is from the top of Tesuque Peak. We had a fun time going down this way a number of times. Looking forward to getting better at going down blues so I can keep up with Jack! Thankful to not fall every time though! Woohoo. Improvement! :)

"That Girl" -- R-Swift

One of Jack's new favorite songs right now. It's fun. Great lyrics. Are we different? Can people tell we love Christ by our actions, the words we speak, the way we treat others? Single friends, are you treated for the worth you have? Don't settle! It's not worth it. "They say behind a good man stands a great woman, but I wouldn't be great if my man was a human." Check it. Love you all, mas que saben!!

Goals set...Goals achieved!!

This is mainly for my remembrance more than anything else. Today I headed up to the ski hill to try a few runs by myself. Jack is far better than I am going down the mountain (meaning: no falls, faster, more control, etc) so I figured since I'm not working quite yet (still be praying for that, my prayer warriors, I would really like to get a job some time in near future) I might as well take advantage of the hill since it is only 18 miles from our condo. I had 3 goals for today's run:
1. try a Blue at least once (I've been sticking with the greens because they are easier)
2. get off the ski lift without falling (so tired of crashing and burning every time I got off, it's embarrassing, or not really, but still...)
3. make it down the mountain without falling (because c'mon...who wants to fall?)

Happy to say that I accomplished all 3 of my goals! Woohoo! I felt like I was in a lot better control of myself on the board this time around. I tried a blue 4 times, if I remember correctly, and only fell twice on them. Yay! Improvement. Also, after crashing the first time I got off the ski lift I never fell again after that. Maybe it was because the lift operator and I made a bet about it. :) And I thankfully made it down the mountain multiple times with NO falls! Yay! Save the tushy.




It was nice to get out of the house for a little bit (about 3 hours) and do something active. I had a really hard day yesterday with feelings of loneliness, isolation, boredom, sadness and was down right pitying myself. Thankfully Jack decided I needed to get out of the house so instead of letting me cook dinner (which I was more than willing to do) he took me out to a new restaurant for us and let me pick! It's a place right next to our grocery store that I see every time I go there and have always been intrigued by it. It's called Jinja and it is a very yummy Asian restaurant. We enjoyed some pot stickers for an appetizer (haven't had those in a while and they were gooood) and then I splurged on some Malay Coconut Soup, yum! We both got entrees but after my appetizer and soup I was stuffed so we boxed mine up and we both had it for lunch today. Jack had some yummy beef steak kabob thingy which tasted great! It was relaxing and encouraging going out to dinner and we were able to talk about things that we want to see grow in our personal lives and in our marriage. The biggest thing being growing in our prayer life. Jack's been reading a book on prayer lately and I'm thankful he is trying to step up and lead in that area for us. Looking forward to more concerted times of prayer and coming together to lift up our family, friends and other needs that arise.

And just for laughs :)

Sunday Fun

So remember how I told you here about getting to entertain the little 8 year old the other night while the guys worked on their cars? Well Jack received a text from his mom the next day that read: "Henry (the little boy) was asking when he could come back over and play with Becky. It seems he had a fantastic time." Hahahaha! Love it! We DID have a fun time playing Wii and the XBox. We ended up going over to their house on Sunday for dinner (awesome homemade pizza), some bowl game and playoff game watching and a little Apples to Apples playing. I even got a hug from Henry before leaving (and from Donald, his 10 year old brother) which was fun.

Sunday was a fun filled day for us. We headed up to church to go to the new Sunday school class that was starting. It's an 8 week session called "Discovering God's Way of Handling Money" by Crown Financial. We took a Crown Financial class our first year of marriage and really learned a lot from it but we definitely knew we needed a bit of a refresher course in order to really put our money and how we handle it in the right perspective. Looking forward to going through this class for the next couple of months. We also enjoyed another great lesson from Pastor Mark at our church that morning talking about Christ's transfiguration in Matthew 17:1-13. We were reminded to listen to the words of Jesus, to marvel at his humiliation (being that Jesus suffered and died as a man, yet fully God, and completed his mission not by supernatural power but as a man) and to set our hope on the future glory of Christ when he is revealed from heaven. Read that passage...it's a good one.

After church we headed out to lunch with some new friends we've made there, Kimi and Jeremy. Jeremy hails from Alabama and Kimi from Texas so we bonded over our "outsider-ness" and our feeling that NM is just a "different kind of place with different kind of people" :). They invited us to try a new (to us) place in Los Alamos called The Coffee Booth where we enjoyed cafe type food. It was yummy and the company was even better. We had some good laughs and got to know each other better. Definitely enjoy the instant connection we feel with them and look forward to getting to know them better! Kimi and I have a connection that we both speak Spanish (because she lived in Colombia for 2 years) and Jack and Jeremy are interested in learning it more. Jeremy spent 2 years in India, which is awesome, and we look forward to hearing stories from their times of ministry in those two countries.

After lunch Jack and I headed out to go for a hike (we decided we didn't want to drive back down to the Fe just to turn around to head back up to LA for dinner at his boss' place) near the Valle Caldera. We decided to do the Coyote Call Trail hike which is a 3 mile loop trail.  We knew there would be snow up there (we were at almost 9000 feet) and found ourselves trekking through, at times, snow up to our knees (I think we might invest in some snowshoes, would have been easier and probably more fun) but we still had a pretty good time. We only made it a mile in before Jack started not feeling so good (he's still recovering from a stomach bug he had last week) so we took some pictures, enjoyed the scenery and turned around to head back to the car. We headed over to the Poston's for dinner and hanging out which was enjoyable then I drove us home because Jack's head starting hurting him pretty good. Overall it was an enjoyable and fun Sunday. Looking forward to the fact that Jack has 4 day weeks the next 3 weeks in a row and we'll be off hiking with our new friends, snowboarding and hanging out!

Still enjoying the reading plan. One week down! Probably better than I've done on this thing in a long time! Praying for perseverance, excitement and enjoyment of the reading plan! How are you doing on your reading plan (if you're doing it)? How about with any new year's resolutions?!

L-R, T-B: The trail head. Part of the trail, you can see the snow shoe tracks. The caldera. Some sort of animal tracks. The caldera, again. The snow crystals. Caldera. Becky and Jack :)

More Snowboarding Adventures

Today we got to enjoy the ski hill for a few hours. This time I took the new GPS watch to track the miles we did and the speed. In hindsight I probably should have given the watch to Jack because he's way faster than me but I guess that will have to wait until next time. We found a fun track down the mountain that we repeated 6 times. Jack never fell after the first time down! WOW! :) I definitely improved each run for which I am thankful. Guess I need to hit up the hill sometime during the week on my own in order to keep up with Jack!




We are so looking forward to visits from friends and family to hang out with us up on the mountain! It sure is a lot of fun!!

Here are a few pictures of us having fun out there.

Jack made it off the ski lift! Check out the name of one of the Black's...Muerte, lovely haha.

 

Looks like a whagonweel! Impressed by how easily those 4 are getting off the lift!

Jack was busy talking with our lift mate, Will, so I snapped a quick pic of myself :)

One day we'll be good enough to maneuver through the aspens!

Pretty view from midway up the ski lift.

Jack at the top of the lift, not the top of the mountain, must get better for that!

Me at the top, this is what you get when there are only 2 of you to take pics!

Sooo pretty!

Driving home! Jack forgot his sunglasses :) Guess these will have to do!

And on a totally random note...yesterday our friends Dave Dixon and Dave Poston came over so that the three guys could work on their cars. Turns out they all needed to replace the thermostat so they decided to do the work in our garage. Poston brought his 8 year old son over to hang out so I ended up getting to entertain him for a while. We played Mario Kart on the Wii, some fun games on Dixon's new XBox Kinect then enjoyed Despicable Me. By then it was past midnight and the poor little guy was pooped and passed out on the couch. Turns out Poston's car took way longer than expected to fix due to some really ornery bolts but the guys finally finished the work by 3:30AM...yes 3:30 after working on it for about 6 hours! SHEW! So after everyone left...this is what Jack was up to at close to 4am:

 

Vacuuming. That's right! I was so thankful he did that because a lot of stuff got tracked in from the garage and we didn't want it settling in. It was a late night but I think we all had a pretty good time. Jack and I got some sleep and then were raring to get out on the hill. Overall, not a bad last 2 days! :)

What's the biggest headache of traveling?

Airports.

Now don't get me wrong. I actually am someone who LOVES airports (as long as one flight being late doesn't cause me to miss the connecting flight, or my baggage isn't lost, or the airplane isn't too loud, etc) because I LOVE people watching. I mean c'mon, where else can you see people from all over the world converging into one "small" area rushing around like ants before winter in order to catch a flight? You hear so many languages, see soo many styles of dress (some ridiculous, some interesting, some casual, some down right fashionable, but don't look at me...I go for comfort), watch people moving like they're on a human highway. I think it's always fun to watch the frantic passenger sprinting through the terminal, against the flow of traffic like a salmon trying to go upstream to lay it's eggs (that is the salmon, right?)...and I always wonder where everyone is headed. Are they on business? Pleasure? Just leaving for a big trip? On their way home? But I digress.

Most people dislike airports. Long lines, pat downs, x-ray machines, expensive food and drink, pushy passengers...it can definitely become a headache fast. Flying internationally? That just throws more fodder to the wolves...immigration, that can be a nightmare. So are you wondering where I'm going with all of this?

If I ever have to get to travel overseas to the far east...I'm definitely booking my flight to have a nice long lay-over in...SINGAPORE!!! We're talking free Blockbuster movies being played in movie theater sized rooms, a 4-story tall slide (takes 30 seconds to get down it) or not so brave a 1 1/2 story tall slide, a butterfly garden, a pool and hot tub for your leisure, free showers, or how about a bus tour of the city while you wait? That's not all! How about a relaxing nap in a sunflower garden, and if you're feeling antsy go workout at the gym with exercise clothes provided! After a nice workout head on over for a pedicure by flesh eating fish...sounds...interesting. Maybe if airports start taking notes from this place everyone would be a bit happier while traveling and will not crowd the ticket counter the next time they fly trying to be the first person on the plane...or...not. :)

On another note...stay tuned for something exciting I'm about to start (hopefully tonight) and will be posting more on it at a later date (possibly tomorrow!)!!

Smile :)

Not only do I LOVE this website. I also LOVE today's post :) I try to check this site every day, if I can, in order to find out the next awesome thing he comes up with and I almost always find myself smiling, laughing, and over all enjoying what he has to say. Today's was no exception. So skip on over to the website and check 'er out. You won't be disappointed :)

And because I've been told by a certain someone (B to the R to the I-A-N) that it's not fun to read a blog with no pictures on it...here's one for your viewing enjoyment :) This was taken after our yummy lunch at Red Robbin on Jack's and my last day in NC over the holiday break. Such fun friends! Loving Ruby's little smile.

L-R: Daniel, Sarah, Brian, Alinna, Jack, Becky and Ruby!

Cool gift!

So my sister and her hubby gave me an early birthday present while we were in NC which was a Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS watch. This thing is cooool! I used it today for my first attempt at exercising in Santa Fe. I decided to try a trail run not too far from the house, on the way to the ski hill. This watch tracked my average pace, my fastest pace, my elevation changes and the route I took! I think it will be fun to see how I improve while living at this high elevation. As for today's exercise...it was a bit disappointing. I had to walk a majority of the route because it was so steep, icy and snowy. Glad I wore my gortex trail running shoes! I've never felt so sick while I was running like I did today, I'm blaming it on altitude sickness :) hehe. Here's to better, faster, longer runs in the future!! :)



(click view details to see more, then hit player to watch the action, hahah, such an awesome watch! Thanks D&B!!)

ps: Here's a view from part of the run. It was pretty nifty up there!

To my fellow blog readers

Hi everyone!! First of all, thanks for reading! I enjoy posting and I enjoy getting to share what Jack and I are up to out here in NM and every where else we are off to. Also, I LOVE hearing feedback so if you ever want to leave a comment feel free!

I've been speaking with one of the readers of this blog and she introduced a problem to me and I wanted to make sure no one else was having this same issue. She signed up to read this blog using a non-gmail email address (at least I believe that's correct). Upon signing up for blog access she found out she would only have access to read the blog for 30 days. Has anyone else been given this time frame?! If you are a blog author and have a private blog have any of your readers been presented with this problem? Any ideas how to fix it?! Please let me know if 1) you have been told you can only have access to the blog for 30 days (and if so, when you no longer have access let me know and I can send you invite again, assuming that will work and allow you access again) and/or 2) you've ever had readers of your blog encounter this and how you may have resolved the issue.

Thanks so much and happy reading! Love you all, miss you all and look forward to the next time our paths may cross again!!

**update** I have also found out that some people haven't been able to login to read the blog after having been given permission...grr blogger. If this ever happens to you, please email me or fb me and I'll send another invite. Sorry for the mess folks!

Holy Guacamole!

Who's up for some caving (Click the link to see what I'm talking about)?!? This would be AWESOME to visit. Ah, takes me back to the good ol' days of Ozark Lakes Summer Project '02 when we went caving and had to crawl through the "birth canal"...memories :) That was an amazing summer project and I got to do a lot of things for the first time, grew a ton in my walk with the Lord and made some great friends along the way. So thankful for Campus Crusade for Christ and their commitment to college students!

Snowball Fight!!

Holiday Re-cap!

Weeeeeeee're baaaaaaaack!!! We finally made it in around 11:30pm MST last night and fell straight into bed for some much needed rest. Jack was up early and off to work and I was...up...haha. We had a fabulous time on the east coast. So here' a little recap of everything that went down, pictures included, but not too many because I don't want to overload anyone probably too many.

1. Flew out to Raleigh, from Albuquerque with a stop over in the ATL on Christmas Eve. Thankfully there wasn't much holiday traffic and they were both nice flights full of free wi-fi internet access and extra pretzels from the flight attendant because Jack has a way of making people really enjoy him because of his antics and smile (seriously, not sure how he does it sometimes, people just like him!). The long flight from ABQ to ATL wasn't full, YAY, so we split a 3 seater and made sure Jack's laptop bag's seat belt was securely fastened with it's seat in the upright position and tray table locked and stowed (or not that last part). Shew.

2. We arrived in Raleigh safe and sound around 9:30pm and headed over to see the Lowthers and pick up some Christmas gifts we had shipped to save room for packing clothes, etc in our bags. Thankfully they had some yummy Christmas Eve dinner left-over that Jack and I were able to enjoy because we all know there wouldn't have been a fast food restaurant open that night. After enjoying some entertaining home videos we headed down to Wilmington and arrived there close to 1am. Took some pre-Christmas festivities pictures of the tree and wreath (there's something special about being up the night before Christmas with the whole house quiet and just the Christmas tree lights being on, it was pretty) and then we crashed into bed.

3. We woke up Christmas morning and I got to hang out for a bit with my bro-in-law, Jon, and enjoyed catching up with him. Everyone else was still asleep so we chatted and hung out with AJ. KyLee began to stir so off he went take her to Mom (Julie) in order to get her morning feeding and I was off to wrap some gifts! We had a nice relaxing morning and then opened some gifts. Julie got the Michael Jackson dance game for Wii so she and I danced our heads off until we were sweating and tired while Jennie cuddled KyLee and the guys went on a forever hunt for an open grocery store! We had a nice big dinner that night together and then headed to bed. We enjoyed a nice church service on Sunday at Jennie and Gary's church and KyLee was oohed and aahed over by many :) She's such a hit! Julie and Jon packed up later that afternoon to head back home but it had started snowing. After making it a little ways out they decided for safety sake to turn around and come back. YAY! We enjoyed some Pinochle and just hanging out. The next morning Gary, Jack, Jon, Julie and I headed out for a run. It was so great to get back out running again (it's been since my last 1/2 marathon in October that I actually went out and ran some) and it was enjoyable getting to run as a family. After that it was showers and then J,J&K packed up to head home and Jack and I packed up to head to Raleigh for the Brewer Christmas fun!

KyLee loved looking at the tree and all the lights. Melt my heart :)

Jack and I obviously missed the memo to get ready before we came downstairs...ahem. :)

That's one adoring Grama! I think K was singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing or something like that.

Sweet fam :)

Hanging out on Grampa's knee!

Uncle Jack's mimicking her face hahah.

Their other love, AJ!!

Hey Dad! This hat's so cool, but it is a bit itchy.

Did I say I loved my niece? Well, I do :)

Hanging out with Grama while she reads her a book!

I love my nephew, he's just the cutest!

So happy. LOVE this smile!

KyLee looks a might bit afraid :)

Loving the way she's cutting her eyes at Uncle Jack :)

Uncle Jack, you're so goofy!

4. We made it to Raleigh by lunch time and enjoyed some yummy homemade soup by Debbie. My niece, Keirsten, was there and was raring to go to open some presents! We all crowded around the tree in the living room and had an enjoyable time opening gifts. Some of us got some board games so we migrated to the kitchen table to give them a try! We had a lot of fun and then decided we needed to walk off some of the snacky foods we'd been munching on all day. Tracy, Rob and K decided it was time to head home so Mom, Dad, Debs, Brian, Jack and I took a fun trip around the neighborhood through the snow and ice. We had numerous games of kick the ice ball while on our trip which was fun and at least one short snowball fight. We decided to do some Pei Wei take-out for dinner (yum!) and settled in to watch Despicable Me. Such a great movie. The next morning we all got up and headed to Chick-fil-a for some breakfast before Debbie and Brian had to head to work. It was fun having the whole family together. Mom and Dad were heading home that afternoon so after D&B left for work the rest of us decided to do a little shopping. Then we said our good-byes and Jack and I headed back to Wilmington.

Keirsten showed off her new gymnastics skills!

Rob's version of smiling for the camera :)

Mawmaw and Pawpaw with their grand baby :)

w00t

If you know my dad....this is so true :)

Rob got the gag gift!!!

Snowball fight!!! Nice follow through Debbie! Look at that leg kick!

Good shot!! Right in the hands!

Brian fires back!

Jack's turn!!

Nice shot!!

Eeeek not at the camera!!

Fun stroll through the neighborhood. :)

Love these two.

Anything can become a soccer ball with a little imagination.

5. We hung out in Wilmington from Tuesday until Friday and enjoyed some really nice dinners out on the town including  Bonefish Grill and The Oceanic. I enjoyed some yummy fish which I hadn't had in quite a while. We made it to the Oceanic in time for some beautiful views of the ocean and that was enjoyable. Also while in Wilmington we went to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader which was awesome (we watched it in 3D but unfortunately were a little late so we missed the beginning of the movie...guess we'll just have to go again, shucks haha :)) and worked on putting a puzzle together (didn't quite get it finished before we had to leave).  One of the mornings the four of us got up and went for a run at the beach. So pretty. It was cold out but definitely a lot of fun. The head wind at times sure made it feel like we were running in one place but the views were spectacular and I always love the sound of the ocean. Sadly I didn't have my camera with me the two times we were at the beach because it was just gorgeous but that's ok.

6. Friday morning (our 5 year anniversary!!!) we woke up really early and headed back up to Raleigh. Once there Brian, Debbie, Jack and I decided we'd go out to the nearby Bond Park and play some disc golf. It doesn't have a course so we made up our holes and we had a blast. We trounced through woods and parking lots and down the path around the lake and enjoyed playing boys vs girls captain's choice. I don't think we really kept track of score but had a lot of fun trying new and tricky things to make the holes harder :) . After that we lazed around trying to figure out lunch plans, dinner plans, NYE plans. We finally decided on Greek Fiesta and it was DELISH! After lunch we shopped a bit at REI and other places (we really shopped Jack out, he was exhausted) and then we grilled some steaks and chicken kabobs and had a wonderful dinner together. Our good friends, the Apples, came over to enjoy the fire pit with us and headed home around 11pm. We went for another walk close to midnight and then rang in the new year watching the Apple drop in Time Square and sipping on some sparkling cider. We were all exhausted and conked! It was an enjoyable new year celebration and anniversary.

Mmmm dinner was so yummy!

Jack did a great job chopping all the veggies.

Rebecca and Debbie fun times with fun friends

Seth enjoying the fire pit!

Our traditional New Year's Eve picture! By traditional I mean we did this last year, too :)

7. Saturday we got up early and all four did Insanity together. Jack had never done it and it had  been a little while for the rest of us. We enjoyed it, pushed ourselves, sweated like crazy, and had a good ol' time! We were all sore by Sunday! Later that night we went to Brixx for dinner and hung out with Stint friends! It was so fun with lots of laughs and it was good just to catch up. While there we also ran into some old high school friends (hadn't seen them since freshman year of college, holy guacamole) and also some great college friends we hadn't seen in a few years. It was so good to catch up with them as well!


8. Sunday was a super enjoyable time at Harvest North Raleigh. SO wonderful to see everyone there and get some much needed hugs! If you live in Raleigh or the surrounding area should definitely check this church out. The message was on Heaven - Something Real to Look Forward To and boy was it a good reminder and encourager to fix our focus on eternal things and to get excited about what is to come! I very much enjoyed it. Sweet Alinna came to church and brought the Rubester with her and then a few of us went out to lunch afterwards to Red Robin (yum burgers!) then it was time for Jack and me to get to packing to head out. We finally got home safely and were SO thankful for such a sweet trip. So happy to have had time to spend with our family and friends and are definitely missing everyone! We've got 2 possibly 3 visit from peeps planned for Feb and March and I'm already looking forward to that! Seriously, our doors are open and we'd love to have you come visit. Just let us know :)

9. So now that we've settled back home I also wanted to post a quick tid-bit about the Bible reading plan a few of us are doing together. I'm hoping that because there are a few of us doing it together that it will help hold me accountable. I also wanted to extend the invitation to you to join us! You're not too late. We're only on the 3rd day so come one, come all and let's get into the Word this year! I give each and every one of you permission (and I really do ask you to do this) to Facebook me, email me, text me, call me, Skype me, etc and ask how I'm doing with it. Ask every day if you'd like. It'll help! Besides, that's one more way of communication I get with you!!! :) Sneaky huh? So let me know if you are doing some sort of reading plan this year, or if you want to join us! Any other resolutions anyone has made? All I know is that I will do at least one half marathon this year, to continue my at least 1 every year tradition! Looking forward to picking out the date and place and then training for it!!