Turkey Trot and Fayetteville Half

Chris did two more 5Ks this year.  One was in Siloam Springs at the Turkey Trot.  It was extremely cold that morning in the low 30s.  This was also his first race to run without his running partner Vaden.  I know that he was nervous about it but he finished in 29.15 minutes!

The other 5K he ran in was the Fayetteville Half and 5K.  He was really worried about this one because of all the hills around the University.  It also rained that morning and he was concerned about the sidewalks being slick.  Thankfully it was pretty warm besides being a little rainy.  This one was pretty interesting to watch people you started outside the track center and you actually crossed the finish line in the track center.  They put your picture up on the jumbotron when you finished.  He finished this 5K in 31:30.

I made Chris get his picture taken with Big Red

They gave you a medal for completing the race.

I'm so proud of him!!

I know that Chris has plans to lose another 25 pounds next year and do his first half marathon and do tough mudder.  I plan on being there to cheer him on.  I'm so proud of him for working so hard at his goals.  He's even trying to get me to run more.  I'm going to try to run in the color run in Tulsa in April or May.  Thankfully he's my motivator!

November Recap

November went by in a blur of activities.  We swapped out our television and our chairs with friends.  We attended the lighting of the Ozarks and of course we voted.

This is my smile face (I don't like to show my teeth)! I've voted in every election since being able to.

Greg gave us his 60 inch TV and we gave our 50 inch to Kathleen and Vaden.

Goodbye big red chair you're going to a much better place and Morgan misses you dearly!

My coworker Lisa was moving and she was nice enough to give me her chaise lounge.  So now I'll always have it to remember her by.

We also bought an end table and lamp so I can read there.  I think it completes the corner.

2012 Lights of the Ozarks

We bought Newton and Baxter scarves to wear for our Christmas cards.

Halloween Party 2012

Our annual Halloween party was actually held after Halloween this year.  We didn't have a really big turn out and a lot of people cancelled last minute.  But we still had a lot of fun.  Here are some photos from the party:

Scariest Costume Winners

Funniest Costume

Best Male Costume- The Invisible Man

Most Original Costume- and they actually have a real bun in the oven!

Photo Book

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Adios Carpet

One of the first things that we did after coming back from our trip was go and look at hardwood floors.  We've always wanted them but we never seemed to have the funds to afford them.  Thankfully we came back with just enough money to finally get them done.  It's a good thing to because while we were gone the dogs got sick a lot on the carpets.  We didn't have enough funds to do the whole house but hopefully in the near future we'll be able to go the rest of the house done.  Now that we have hardwood floors we'll never go back to carpet again!!  The only thing that I can say that I don't like about them so far is that I'm not allowed to walk on them wearing high heels.  Other than that I love them!!!! I absolutely love the color of them and the hand scraped finish!  I want to say thanks to Greg who helped with the floors and finding a great guy to get them installed.  I also want to thank Kathleen, Vaden, and Greg for helping move all of our furniture back in too!!

Newton loved not having any furniture in the house.  He could run around as fast as he wanted.

Morgan had been secretly peeing in the dining room.

Goodbye carpet!!!

I took some photos while the guys were out at lunch.

It looks like our house was always meant to have hardwood floors!

Craft Fairy

Shortly after we got back from our vacation Chris's parents came up to visit and to go to the craft fairs.  Our friends have nicknamed Chris the craft fairy because he goes to the craft fairs with us.  We actually really love going to them and so do Chris's parents.  Thankfully the weather was really nice which always makes the outdoor craft fairs like War Eagle even more enjoyable.

Sunday after church we all went to Crystal Bridges Museum.  I'm not really sure that Chris's dad liked it but everyone else seemed to.  We've been several times and I really love going.  Maybe next time we go we'll be able to do some of the trails around the museum.

Day 14 Traveling home

We woke up at 4 in the morning to start getting ready to head back home.  We were sad to be leaving Jonathan, Valerie and Eli but we were looking forward to going home as well.  We had a great vacation probably a vacation of a lifetime.  We're already thinking of what our next trip will be to.  Jonathan drove us back to Zurich that early rainy morning and we said our goodbyes.  Going through security and immigration was easy and we just had to wait for our flight to board after that.  We took British Airways to London.  It was the nicest flight I've ever been on and the smoothest landing I've ever had.  We all clapped when we landed.  After we arrived we had to go back through security and then we grabbed some lunch.  We left London without any delays and we were on our way to Chicago.  Eight hours later we landed in Chicago and we had to wait an hour and a half to go through immigration and customs.  When we got through that we only had 20 mins. to make it to our connecting flight.  We didn't realize that we would have to go back through security and when we got to the check point the line was another an hour wait.  Thankfully we found someone and told them about our situation and she let us go to the front of the line.  Once we made it through security we ran to our terminal.  We barely had enough time to go to the bathroom and then board the plane for home!  Kathleen and Vaden picked us up from the airport and took us for a homecoming meal at Burger King.

I bought this scarf in Germany as my European scarf to wear on the plane.

Last sunset on the plane heading back to Northwest Arkansas.