Christmas Holiday and the past 3 weeks

Since I last posted, quite a few things have happened. J had his 1st basketball game and they beat Berclair Baptist.

J scored 4 points but only 2 were for his team. He scored the other basket for the opposing team after halftime when he forgot to change goals. We had a great laugh about that one!
After his game, he went to his dad's and me, mom, sissy and Marcia had our annual mother/daughter Christmas get together. Instead of doing brunch this time, we went to a movie and dinner. I can't even remember the name of the movie now but it was a real cute romantic comedy and then we grabbed dinner and a few bottles of wine at Bonefish. It was a lot of fun, especially since Marcia kept her fat mouth closed. I don't want to go into it too much but the night before, she has crossed a line w/me that she cannot come back from. Dillon got caught selling weed and she threw my name out to the deputies trying to help him out. Pissed does not even describe how I feel. I'm sick of her being such a selfish bitch and am through with her. Anyways, I let her have it Friday night and Saturday she kept her mouth closed because she doesn't want Mom to find out. Little does she know, she knows but whatever. After dinner, I drove mom home and then went over to Sissy's and had some more wine and talked about everything that had happened.

The next weekend (Dec. 11-12) was our annual Cowboys game trip with the Mays and Feathers. We left Memphis Saturday, the game was Sunday night and headed back to Memphis Monday morning. The weather was great when we got to Dallas but temps started dropping quickly. I had been sick before we left and K got a hit of it while we were in Dallas. It was Mel and Chuck's first visit to the stadium and they were not disappointed. We stayed in Arlington and hung out in Arlington. Saturday night we went to the Fox and Hound and Boomer Jack's. Saturday we went to brunch at Black Finn and did some shopping at the Arlington Highlands. We "tailgated" at the hotel before the game because it was so cold. the Cowboys played the Eagles and lost by 3. First game K and I have been to where they lost. It stunk but we still had a really good time.

The next Friday (December 17) J got out of school at 11:30 for Christmas break and we headed north to visit Dad. We drove to Springfield and stopped for the night. We went to the huge Bass Pro and let J do some shopping. He had saved some money for the trip and I gave him an early Christmas present, a gift certificate for Bass Pro. He had a blast! We wound up staying there about 3 1/2 hours but that included stopping to eat dinner at Hemmingway's too.

We stayed the night and got up Saturday morning to head to Kansas City. We stopped at the Osceola Cheese Factory on our way.

I have always wanted to stop there but when you are driving straight through the KC/Memphis journey, I don't take kindly to pit stops and extending the 8 hour drive but since we were only driving 3, it was the perfect time to stop and I'm glad we did. They have the best cheese in about 100 different flavors. I bought $40 worth of cheese and hot sauces. I will be stopping again for sure even if I am driving straight through. We got to Dad's around lunch and visited for a bit. Later on that afternoon, me, J, dad and Dee met Shelly,Todd, Libby and Will at the bowling alley and bowled a few rounds. It took dad a good game and a half to bowl halfway decent!

When we finished, we were pretty hungry so we headed over to Mensky's Pizza for dinner and a magician show. It started snowing while we were at dinner, which obviously made me very uneasy but it was gone when we woke up Sunday morning! J and I met Shelly, Todd and the kids at their church. After church, we grabbed dad and Dee and went skating. 

J rocked the limbo just like I use to and almost won! 

After skating, we went out to Cabella's to do a little more Christmas shopping and let J see the place.

Later on that evening, everyone came over to Dad and Dee's, including Brian, Mindy and Chris for dinner and to watch football. J and I hit the road Monday morning and came back to Memphis. That Tuesday night was Christmas at mom's with me, J, K, mom, Roy and Aunt Opal and then J, K and I did part of our Christmas when we got home. K got me one of the best presents ever! I am the proud owner of a Kindle now and it is the best :) Wednesday, J went to his dad's and Thursday, K and I left for Louisiana. We hung out at his parents when we got in, Ryan and Mallory came over for dinner with us. Christmas eve was a beautiful day. I got up early and got 4 miles in before the eating frenzy started. K and I did some last minute shopping that afternoon and picked up a bunch of boudin to bring home to the freezer. Christmas eve night was spent at Aunt Jerry and Uncle Sonny's. Christmas morning was cold and rainy and all around pretty yucky. I wanted to get out for another run but the weather wouldn't permit. K and I went over to Ms. Jan and Prescott's for a little bit. I got to meet 2 of her daughters but Christy didn't get to come because Frank was in the hospital with gallbladder problems. That afternoon, we all went over to Aunt Cathy and Uncle Charlie's. We ate and ate and ate and ate and watched football. K and I got up and left Sunday morning to come home. We never got to see Anna Claire or Mary Katherine because MK had the flu. We got back to Memphis and K packed his hunting stuff and headed to the camp to meet Ryan and a friend of his that came up with him to hunt for the week. I picked up J and we hung out while he played with all his presents he got from Louisiana and his new .20 gauge shotgun. Yesterday, I had to work for a couple of hours so J came to work with me. We had lunch at Kooky Canuck's, went to visit the Peabody ducks, went to the movies to see Gulliver's Travels and then had a long bowling competition on the Wii....and I never one any of the games. J went back to his dad's this morning when I went to work.

CTK Christmas Program

Last night, K and I took J to his school Christmas program. He had a speaking part in it and nailed it. The program was pretty short and painless. The star of Bethlehem was the highlight of the show....at least as far as K and I were concerned. She was in a gold star outfit and was suppose to stand with her arms out to her sides the whole program and the poor little thing couldn't do it. We had the best time watching her trying to wiggle and hold up like she was suppose to, she did everything in the world up on that stage except stand like she was suppose to. Jackson, Wyatt and both of their sisters also had speaking parts. After the program, we ran be Pei Wei to pick up dinner and headed home to watch Lebron head back to Cleveland and get booed by his old town. K did laundry and packed for his hunting weekend.

Crack candy, tree decoration, early Christmas gift and a decision on the marathon

Someone got an early Christmas present.

How cute is Taco meat??

Monday was Tom's memorial service. K picked J up from school for me so I could go. We had planned on getting our tree when I was through with the service but it was raining and freezing cold so it was a no go. J was disappointed but I lifted his spirits a little by making deer tacos. Tuesday was suppose to be bowling night for J but Jimmy had a basketball game so he went with me to the Tashie's. Marcy cooked us dinner and she and I had a marathon crack candy making session while the kids played. They hadn't seen each other in forever and had a lot of fun.

Marcy and Sophia breaking up the crack!
I'm not sure what has me in such the Christmas mood but I was really in the mood to have some kind of tree up in the house, so when we got home from the Tashie's, I put up the Charlie Brown Christmas tree I had bought earlier that day.

"I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love."
The rain finally cleared up Wednesday so we were finally able to go get our tree. We went to the Christmas tree lot across from the K Rogers (where we went last year) and one of the teachers/baseball coaches, Coach Vanamon, that was at White Station when I was there was running the lot. We did a lot of catching up, he is still coaching but at Cordova High now. He was very interested in J. Said he could tell he was a ball player and was going to be huge. Called him being a pitcher without us telling him. I originally thought we would just get the tree home and decorate another night because I had planned on cooking a pot of tomato cream sauce and pasta but once we had the tree, I wanted it decorated, so we ordered pizza and got to work.

Amazingly only one ornament was broken this year, but that was probably because I let the guys do more of the decorating than I did. Last year, I easily broke 8 or 9.... oops! We finished up and then enjoyed dinner by tree light.

K and I made a decision on the St. Jude marathon and the decision is to not participate. It is suppose to be a great hunting weekend, the temperatures are going to be subfreezing at race time and J's first basketball game is at the same time so our decision was kinda made for us. We're toying around with the idea of signing up for the Nashville half so we will have a reason to keep training. I went ahead and picked up my race packet and t-shirt today after my sushi lunch with Amber even though I'm not running. The shirt is cute but the 5k shirt was a lot cuter, it was green!