Merry Christmas, y’all! I hope everyone has a wonderful day with family and friends. For your Christmas enjoyment, I dug up an outtake photo from our trip to see Santa Clause with the dogs in Christmas 2012. Here is the one I showed you last week:

As I indicated, everything went crazy right after this picture was taken. Scout threw her head back in an attempt to lick Santa’s face (ripping his beard off with her paw in the process), Toby saw his opening to attempt to make an escape, and Hank jumped up from all of the excitement and nearly knocked the tree over with his hind end. What I did not realize, is that I actually have a picture from the beginning of this chaos:

Poor Santa is still trying to hang on to all three dogs.

Merry Christmas from the whole Fam Damily!

Merry Christmas Eve! Our advent tree is full. You know what that means….

One more sleep ’till Santa!!

Barry has to work today (and tomorrow), so I will be at home with the dogs. We will head up to my dad’s house later this week to visit with family. This is the first time we have been in our own house on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It’s a bit of a change for me, but that’s alright. I will be fixing a traditional Christmas dinner of chicken spaghetti and only plan to torture Barry a little bit, when we watch ‘A Christmas Story’ which is my most favorite Christmas movie.

“That star is crooked. No honey, it looks fine.”

 Have a great Christmas Eve!

What are your Christmas Eve traditions?
  

I had another lighter week of workouts, and I think I’ll probably be finishing out the year in that fashion. I think I need to give my body and my mind a bit more time to regroup after the marathon and the months of training.

Monday- 120 second plank. This is all the exercise I did on Monday, but let me tell you right when I finish a plank I feel like I’ve completed a whole workout. I recover quickly, but in those seconds just after my plank I feel like I could have run a hard 5K.

I might have mixed in some cross training on Monday, but I was exhausted after driving 10 hours round trip for a work meeting. The plank was enough on Monday.

Tuesday- 120 second plank. Again, the plank was enough on this day.

Wednesday- 3 mile run with Sven. My shins hurt a bit when I first started out, but the pain quickly dissipated. I took it nice and easy and made sure to stretch and ice afterwards.

I think the treadmill is going to be a good way for me to stay active with running while not inflicting a beating on my shins. The difference in how my shins feel after a run on pavement vs. a run on the treadmill is monumental. I’m hoping if I take a few weeks easy and try and limit my running to short jaunts with Sven it will keep both my heart and shins happy. Trails are still a definite possibility in my book, since they’re softer than running on pavement. I also plan to be diligent about stretching, icing, and elevating after a workout and am doing well with that so far.

I also did my first 150 second plank. It was so tough! I kept my eyes closed and slowly sang the alphabet in my head 6 times. I think that got me to about 90 seconds. When I finally hit 2 minutes I started to count down with my timer, until I finally hit 2:30 and collapsed onto the floor while my heart raced. 

Thursday- Rest day for the 30 day plank challenge. 4 mile run with Sven while watching one of my favorite Christmas movies. Again, my shins hurt a bit at the start but the pain went away quickly and I enjoyed another easy run with stretching and icing after.

Name that movie. Ready…. GO!

Friday- 150 second plank. I made it to one minute before I desperately peeked at my watch to find I wasn’t even halfway, yet. It took a lot of willpower to hold it for the full 2 minutes 30 seconds, but I managed.

3 mile run with Sven while I finished watching my movie from yesterday. Did you figure out the movie, yet??

Saturday- 150 second plank in Bristol. Barry and I were visiting his parents and sister for Christmas. I was hoping to get up to Abingdon to run on the Creeper Trail (which would have been my first time) but my shins were very bothersome. Maybe I shouldn’t have run three days in a row leading up to our trip, if I wanted to run on the Creeper. But I also wanted to get a few runs in prior to our trip just in case we were busy.

Sunday- 180 second plank. I know I’ve been saying this a lot about these planks, but this one was t-o-u-g-h tough! I kept my eyes closed and slowly sang in the alphabet in my head 12 times for this one. Barry planked with me, too, and so did my new friend Larry the quilt lamb.

Larry was a surprise gift from my mother-, father-, and sister-in-law. We went out to a restaurant the day before and I spotted the soon-to-be-named Larry on display near the cash register. While Barry and I were next door at a neighboring store, they purchased Larry for me and hid him in the van. Such a neat surprise. Larry is excellent at planks, by the way. He can hold a plank all day long.

Total Miles: 10 miles (at least there’s a 1 in front of that 0 this week…)

This week I attended two meetings for work. The first was a planning meeting on Monday for an association that I serve on the board for. It was in Williamsburg, which is nearly a 5 hour drive each way for me, so it was a long day of driving. We got some planning done, had lunch, and then played what I refer to as “Cutthroat Christmas.” It’s the gift-stealing game many play in the spirit of Christmas. I have heard it referred to as White Elephant and Yankee Swap.

At first I got this really cool set of 50 questions for insane conversations. I was really excited about it and was already having visions of asking Barry each of the 50 questions, while he did the driving for our holiday travels. But then it got stolen!

I may or may not still be bitter about that. But that is how the game is played. I ended up with a pinecone and lime-scented Yankee candle which smells really good. I joked that I would light it and place it directly under our artificial Christmas tree so that it would smell like pine!

No fire hazard there!

This Wednesday I had a regional meeting with the folks who all work in the southwest region. We have these meetings about 3-4 times per year, and it’s the only time I see my coworkers, so I always look forward to them. After addressing some business about how we will be handling paperwork in the interim period between our old computer software and the new software we are switching to in 2014, we enjoyed a potluck lunch and some food and fellowship. Then it was time to get down to some more Cutthroat business. This time I made out like a bandit, stealing a gift from one of my coworkers. I ended up with a super soft, sheepskin blanket, a key chain pocket knife, and a mini flashlight/lantern.

I told Barry I was going to sit under my blanket and cut things with my pocket knife, by the light of my new lantern. I have kind of gotten a reputation at work for stealing pocket knifes during our Cutthroat Christmas game, because that is exactly what I did last year. I now have three pocket knives total in my purse.

The blue one is from last year and the green one is from this year.

Because let’s face it. One can never have too many knives. Especially in one’s purse. Am I right?

Have you been to any holiday festivities yet this year?

Do you play ‘Cutthroat Christmas’ with family or friends?
My family used to have a big get together on Christmas Eve with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and we would have a Cutthroat game with at least 15 people playing. You had to be 18 or older to play, though, because of the stealing that goes on. 

Each year since Barry and I have been married, we have taken the dogs to see Santa. Usually the humane society will host pet photos with Santa, with the proceeds going towards helping them out.

Last year when we took Toby, Hank, and Scout to get pictures with Santa it was kind of funny. Scout didn’t have a clue what was going on, Toby was just not interested, and Hank was overly excited which caused him to make really wild-eyed faces. And then Scout ripped off Santa’s beard as she attempted to lick his face. I was just happy she didn’t pee while we were in there, since she was only about 15 weeks old.

Mass chaos

The photographer also did a picture of just Toby with Santa for us, since Toby was a senior citizen. Sadly, last year did end up being his last Christmas so I’m really glad we have this photo.

We missed 2011, but we did take the dogs in 2010 (our first Christmas after getting married). We just had Toby and Hank back then and we took them to see Santa at the humane society in the county we were living in at the time. Funny enough, the photographer was the same one who had done our wedding pictures. Hank was just over 6 months old, but he did really well. Puppies respond well to treats. The flashes from the camera got Toby really excited that year.

This year we went back to the humane society in Radford, with just Hank and Scout this go around. The photographer and other staff were the same folks from last year and they remembered our dogs. They even remembered that Scout had been a small puppy and couldn’t get over how big she is now.

Scout was a good girl this year and did not even jump on Santa. As usual, both dogs took right to him without any problems. This baffles me, especially with Hank. If you remember, he has issues with anyone besides Barry wearing wearing anything on their head (hat, sunglasses, etc.). Because apparently my husband is the only person in the word allowed to wear a hat or sunglasses. Surprisingly, he has no issues with a man in a white beard and red hat. Explain that one.

If you have pets, have you ever had their photo taken with Santa?