Merry Christmas!!

My close friends and family know that I start thinking about my Christmas card in January. (ok well maybe not that early but March? Bless my friend Jami who does my cards because by the time Nov./Dec. comes around she is tired of talking about it. Jami...hope you know how much I appreciate your help. You are so talented at what you do and this years card shows that!)
I love sending out Christmas cards and have so much fun encorporating the dogs. Until the day I am blessed with a husband and children of my own, those dogs are my family! To some it might be silly but I hope when everyone gets my card, they smile. This year I think I did just that! Years ago I thought of using the words, Wishing you Love Laughter and Licks. Anyone who has met Bogey, knows he is a licker, so everytime we take our Christmas pictures, there is always atleast 1 where he is licking my face. Unfortunately those have always been VERY unattractive pictures of me! Not ones I wanted to share with 140 people! This year, naturally there were some pictures with him doing what he does best and it wasn't terrible of me. So I got to use my words!!
I had photos taken with Sara Nice from slice of nice photography. She is a photographer who mainly photographs pets so she was very patient and knew just how to get the dogs attention and and get them both to look at the camera at the same time! I am pleased with a lot of the pictures she took and will definitely use her again. I would recommend her to everyone!
Believe it or not, I already have some ideas for next year! This year will be hard to top though so I better keep my thinking cap on!

GHG Christmas

Last night the "Grayhawk Girls" (Meghan, Mitzi, Noelani,Toni, Singne and I) went over to Mitzi's for our little Christmas get together and to celebrate the Nov./Dec. birthdays of Toni and Noe. As usual we had a lot of fun and laughed a lot. Mitzi made a yummy dinner and even got out her nice china!! This year for a gift exchange we did a white elephant and brought things from our houses. It was so fun and I think we might have started a new tradition! Then as tradition has it now, we watched the 2009 video. I made the girls a video in 2007 of pictures of us from the year as a gift and surprise. Well now it is no surprise and it is just an expected thing. :) This year we watched all three, 2007, 2008 and then the new one this year from 2009. So fun to look at all the fun we have had over the years! I am blessed to have such good friends! Looking forward to more fun in 2010!!

Ho Ho Ho

Pictures with Santa in LAS VEGAS....enough said!

Run,Jog,Walk & Crawl

Saturday Mitzi and I drove to Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon. We were signed up for last years race and Mitzi had an injury so we were able to have our entries transferred into this years race. We hit the road early Saturday morning and arrived in Vegas around 12:30. We hit the expo to pick up our race packets and then hit the rodeo expo next door. (The Las Vegas rodeo was in town and it was HUGE...lots of cowboys and country music playing everywhere. (I have decided I need to "get me a cowboy" but that is another story) We had an early dinner and went early to bed so we were well rested for the race.
The race started at 6:15 and it was COLD!!! Glad at the last minute I decided to throw in a long sleeved shirt or I would have been freezing. The race itself was cool. Fireworks at the starting line, lots of people and fun to run up and down the strip. (you don't realize how long the strip is though until you run from end to end and back!) I felt good up until mile 6 or so. At mile 8 I could really feel my blisters getting bad and by mile 10 I wish someone would put me out of my misery! I am so frustrated with these darn blisters!!! I don't understand why my feet get them ALL over. Seems noone can figure it out. After trying 5 different brands of shoes, different sizes, numerous types of socks, blister stickers, blister powder, duc tape, body glide, etc. I have given up! So this was my last race. I wish I had ended on a high note but after 5, 1/2 marathons and 3, full marathons I am hanging up the running shoes!
For so long I have had this desire to be a good runner and run a race and be able to finish and be happy with my time. That desire is now gone and I am happy with what I have accomplished and am onto something else. My mind is thinking triathlon?? Not as much running and I love swimming and biking and I think the change of pace would be nice. We'll see...for now I am just going to continue doing kick boxing at the gym and if I run it will be 3 miles on the treadmill and no more!