Let's finish out the year

We had another grooming appointment for the BADC. It was at Steph's house this time. She had made beanie weanie casserole and it was good. Then we had craft night. As always a good time. 

The Thursday before Christmas we went to zoo lights with Nick and family, and John's parents. It was really crowded but the kids seemed to like it for the most part. I think that was the beginning of my sickness.....

So then we had Christmas. We decided to do a dinner at our house on Christmas eve. I tried to have Nick have his kids act out the Nativity scene but that didn't happen.....

I made my first prime rib and in true Jena fashion I have pictures I will post. I think it turned out really good and I'm glad I got the bigger rib. We opened presents at our house that night. It was a lot of fun. John's parents had gotten everyone presents and that was really nice of her and the kids liked it a lot.

Christmas morning we went to Nick and Shar's for breakfast and to see what the kids had gotten for Christmas. We gave Ashton his bike that morning and John his gun safe. Then I went to church with Nick and Shar. That evening we went to Steph and Bart's for our annual tradition of breakfast for dinner and our Lights on Bikes ride. We expanded the ride this year and had 8 people instead of just the four of us. We also estimated that we went about 15 miles. We had a good time and got a lot of good responses from people who saw us. I think this is what sealed the sickness...

We did have our gift exchange and I got a Nook that I love!!

The work week was slow but I started to get pretty sick and congested and by Wednesday or so had basically lost my voice. I finally went to the doc in the box today and I have bronchitis, laryngitis, and a sinus infection. The doctor told me "good job!"

Last night John and I went to Stomp at Gammage. I made John go because I thought that he would like it and he did. It was really good and interesting. Next will be South Pacific in January.

So, it's New Year's Eve. We didn't do anything today. Ran an errand and I sat at the doctor's for a while. Then we watched 30 minutes or less.... not worth it.... and now John is sleeping on the couch and I'm reading blogs! How exciting!

Since Cancun

Ok, let's see if I can remember everything since Cancun. I know I went to my work's division Veteran's Day picnic. I think I have some pictures that I will post later. Then the big day came... November 17th. The opening of Breaking Dawn. Stephanie had our Twilight marathon at the Cinecapri and we loved every minute of it.

Then there was Thanksgiving. To avoid having to go to multiple places we decided to have it at our house with Nick and Shar and family and John's parents. We had a ton of food and I think it went really well. I know the next day I went shopping and got most of my Christmas shopping done.

I think it was the first weekend of December I did my first run. It was the 12k's of Christmas, but we only did 6k. It was fun and a good first race experience. I went to White Christmas at Gammage with Shar. We went to Casey Moore's first; I love that place.

I know one Saturday we went to Kirk's annual Christmas party. As always, it was a ton of fun and we got to hang out with some good friends and eat cream puffs.

I found out that the Forgotten Carols was going to be at Gammage. I hadn't been to that in several years and I love the music so I invited John's mom and we went. I think she liked it and it's funny how much of the actual play I didn't remember.

New Background

Yeah, that's right, my background is a chandelier. Only dang chandelier I get. That's all I have to say about that.

Pictures

Everybody at the airport when we arrived!!

Tulum

At Tulum

John and I and Mom and Patti all went parasailing

John's sailfish

Eating the Wahu I caught

Here comes Hurricane Rina

What a bunch of rebels, defying the order to be in our rooms!

This is as close to the beach as we could get

Grandma took a nap...in the lobby

Grandma, Grandpa, and I on our last night

Let's go back in time

A lot has happened since October 5th. I finished another class. Holding up my 3.97 GPA. I know I had a lot of Dr's appointments in the middle of October. That all led up to the big trip the last week of October. We went to Cancun with all of my aunt's and uncles, parents, and grandparents.

We left on Saturday the 22nd very early. Nick took us to the airport. We met everyone in Dallas and then continued on to Cancun. From there it's about a 90 minute drive to the resort, Barcelo. It's an all-inclusive resort. We'd never been somewhere like that before and it was nice and relaxing. Sunday we ended up going to Tulum which is some of the Mayan ruins. It was really amazing and a beautiful day.

Monday was a beach day. I promptly got sunburned and my Mom finally got to parasail. Everyone sort of did what they wanted; reading, swimming, snorkeling, etc. Most of the evenings we tried to go to the gym and sit in the saunas or spas. The hot tub was always scalding hot.

Tuesday we went deep sea fishing with my dad and Russell and Misty. We had the boat to ourselves and had it all day. It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad we did it. There wasn't a lot of time between catches and we each got a pretty big catch that wore us out. After we took a "small" (it was gigantic) filet to a local restaurant and had them cook it up for us and it was delicious.

All this time we had been hearing that there might be a hurricane coming. Well Wednesday while some of the people when to some more ruins we hung out and watched the preparation for the hurricane. It was hard to get information on what was really going on. Thursday was the day that they actually shut us down. We were all supposed to be in our room at a certain time and only one restaurant was open. So we spent the afternoon with all our balcony furniture in the middle of the hall playing cards with everyone.

Friday we made a beach day again and it was beautiful. I don't remember doing a whole lot but going snorkeling with Annette, Mark, and Dwight. Saturday we were leaving so we did go down to the beach and hung out for a bit and then headed to the airport. Our plane was delayed in Cancun and we were told we wouldn't make our connection, but running we did. Overall, it was a really fun trip and we had a great time.

Pictures to come!!

Bucket List

I don't know if I mentioned this before but we (the crew, Stephanie, Bart, John, and I) made bucket lists a few months ago. Well, really, we went searching for Trapper Keepers. If anyone knows where we can get the good Trapper Keepers let me know. So we found Trapper Keeper folders and made our Bucket List folder.

 (and I wonder sometimes why I feel like a kid with a credit card and no supervision.....)

Anyways, so of course, skydiving was on the list. CHECK!
Next on the list that should be crossed off .... we are training for a 1/2 marathon in January. Yep, 13.1 miles. I think I started the whole challenge and it's gotten a little away from me. So we'll keep our fingers crossed that we actually do it.

SKYDIVING

 We finally got our skydiving scheduled about two weeks ago. We have been wanting to do this since we did the indoor skydiving in May. I have to say that it was the best experience ever. I kept waiting for the nerves to set in and have the freak out moment but it never came.

 This was on the tram taking us to the airplane. It's about a 15 minute plane ride to 13000 feet. We each had our tandem person (Joe for me, Jared for John, Pat for Stephanie, and Aaron for Bart). Then we had a photographer also. My photographer was Keith, I don't remember anybody else's. I know Joe was awesome about telling me what was going on and what we were going to do. Once we got to 13000 feet people start bailing out! It's about a 1 minute freefall from 13000 feet to 5000. Then you parachute the rest the way and that takes about 4 minutes.

 I was surprised because when the parachute comes out there wasn't a much of a pull as I expected. Joe let me "drive". We went full speed, stopped, turned left and right.

 The landing was perfect. Basically I stood on Joe's feet and kicked up my legs when he said and then stood up when he told me to. We didn't even end up with any grass stains on our butts.

 It is definitely addicting and it's hard to describe the feeling. I would say that having done the indoor wind tunnel was a good starter to skydiving. I never had the feeling of falling and I want to do it again as soon as possible!! For surviving our fall we had a celebratory dinner at LoLo's! Chicken and waffles with some red Kool-Aid. Best day ever!