Ho, Ho, HO

Holiday season is in full swing at the Lindsey household.

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care.

Since I started this blog almost 1 year ago exactly, my readers haven't seen our stocking collection which I am so very proud of. All of them were made by our mothers. My mom made the one on the far right when I was a baby, I made the two middle ones for the girls and Brian's mom made his on the far left last year so that we would all have some love from Mom.

We trimmed the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. We had to laugh at Camryn's contribution, when we looked over and noticed that one branch had been blessed a little more than the others.

Holiday parading was at the top of our list of things to do this past weekend. We attended the Festival of Lights Holiday Parade in town with some friends. The girls oohed and aahed and we saw lots of "neigh neighs".

Last night was our annual trip to the zoo's Safari of Lights. For the past several years, we have been fortunate enough to attend the zoo donor special night prior to the general public opening with Grammy and Papa Mike. This means fewer people, special Santa treatment and yummy treats. The girls got to pet reindeer and both enjoyed digging into the chocolate fondue fountain. Emma loved talking with Santa and was eager to tell him that she wants a camera and more dress up clothes for Christmas.

Not really anything to do with our holiday, but Saturday was a good running day. I headed down to the Pueblo Rock Canyon 1/2 marathon with 5 other ladies. The weather was unseasonably warm, route was scenic and it was a great way to kick off my marathon training.

Lots more fun in the weeks to come, with two holiday parties this weekend, another Santa visit and holiday party the following, plenty o' baking, charitable gifts to give, and precious time with family and friends. A few more pictures to enjoy and December album has been added. Wish me luck getting to my bookclub read before Monday, I can't put down Josephine B so bookclub might not get done.

Off the Record PR

What an absolutely beautiful day! Temps in the 70's, blue skies - could not have asked for better conditions for this morning's St. Patty's day race. You'd think I would know better after all the races I have run to not register on race morning but for some reason I didn't have my act together on this one and did just that. Wouldn't you know they would run out of timing chips on the day I set my new 5k PR. I wouldn't have placed in my age group, regardless, so it wasn't a big deal. Anyway, my time was unrecorded by the officials and I'll just have to capture it here. Pre-race goal - 25 min, Finish time - 23:46! LOVE the new GPS watch (bday present), made it so much easier to track pace and keep myself on target with a 7:37 min/mile avg. Guess the speed training and consistent winter running is paying off!

Since I felt great after the race and didn't feel like I was going to keel over, I now feel comfortable publishing a couple of race goals for this year. If I stay healthy, keep up the training and conditions are right, I know these are all within reach. Bolder Boulder - 50 min, Garden 10-Miler - 1:25, Denver 1/2 marathon - 1:50. We'll see what this summer/fall has in store!

The girls really enjoyed watching the parade! Emma's favorites were the horses, clowns and dogs that marched. Apparently the truck-load of cheerleaders waving their pom-poms also caught her attention because she told me on the way home that she wants to be a cheerleader. Daddy is going to love hearing that - not! Camryn enjoyed all the activity but had a hard time sitting in her stroller for long. Thankfully, my friend Amy was there to walk Camryn over to the park and let her stretch her legs.