Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving break went great! Here's a run down:

Wednesday morning my sister and I went to HEB and bought the rest of what we needed for Thanksgiving dinner, and then got right to cooking and prepping at her place. When Joe got off work at noon, we all grabbed some lunch and then finished up making desserts. Joe and I finished cleaning up and doing laundry at the house and my parents came in from Dallas that night.

Getting food all ready on Thursday went really well, and we actually got ahead of schedule putting things in the oven! Joe was very nice to wake up early and help first thing in the morning. Everyone had some contribution! My mom also put up some curtains she had bought for our living room. Joe's parents and Emily (his sister) and Rabi drove all the way from the other side of Houston (Pasadena / League City) to join us for the meal and then made another trek home. I think they spent more time on the road than in College Station, so that was very nice of them to make that sacrifice to share Thanksgiving with us. Jerrell (did I spell that right?) is a good friend of my sister and her husband who lives in town, and he joined us, too. One person had to sit on an ice chest, but we all sat together and ate. And ate ;). (The six desserts were probably overkill.)

some of us in the living room

PART of the yummy spread

My sister (Lauren) wanted to do Black Friday shopping but her partner in crime the last few years was out of town this year. Mom and I were the new recruits.

Lauren scheming

See that paper and pen? She went through all the ads, wrote down the time each store opened and what she wanted to get from each store (things like a 2 GB SD card (for a camera) for $6.99). From this list, she developed her battle plan. (I guess I can't talk much... I had a list of everything that needed to be cooked including what times each item needed to be prepped, baked and finished.) My mom and I missed her first wave of stores - I think she hit two before we woke up at 4:40, threw on clothes and joined her at #3. By 7:45 we each had $10 mall gift cards, $5 Half Price Books gift cards, and a serious need for sleep (maybe we should have got to bed before 1:30am?).

We went back home and and to sleep for a little while. That afternoon the Aggie game (vs. tu) started at 2:30. So what were we doing? Joe and I watched Enchanted and my mom watched August Rush at the movie theater! Both were very good movies. We got to see the entire last half of the football game, too. Kevin (my sister's husband) works at Toys R Us and had to be there at 4am, so he slept a lot of the afternoon (this is a hard season to work there - especially since he's a supervisor and has to deal with returns and rude customers).

My parents left Saturday before noon, and we spent (almost) the rest of the rainy day watching movies (Ocean's 13 and Hairspray) and episodes from last season of Heroes.

So that was our Thanksgiving! I hope yours went well, too!

Merry Christmas!

A Thanksgiving post with pictures is coming soon. Until then, enjoy this. (It takes a little while to load.)

Remember Mike?

Yes, he was the headless chicken I once blogged about. I'm not quite that bad yet, but with the Thanksgiving countdown nearing zero, I have my moments. I'm very excited that a lot of family (both sets of parents and sisters, as well as my sister's husband) will be coming. My sister and I will do most of the shopping tomorrow as well as complete some of the prep work and desserts. Last year we did Christmas dinner with my immediate family at our duplex, so I'm not too worried about how it will go this year. My sister's doing a lot more this year (last year she busy with school stuff), which is helpful and more fun!

Speaking of my sister, we celebrated her birthday Friday night and it was a lot of fun! We ate at Roadhouse and then went back to her house for cake (mmm, chocolate). Then we disappeared for a little while, off to the Park's going away party at the bowling alley. A couple of people laughed that Joe brought his bowling ball (with a bag as fancy as the rental shoes), but they weren't laughing long!

Joe got a 226! Not only his best game, but a good 75 points more than the most he usually gets. I'm pretty sure it's been about 3-4 years since we last bowled, but no one could believe that. Joe's the man! Of course, things were also sad because the Parks were moving to Dallas. Honestly, it wasn't that hard for me. At one point we were very close to David and Shelley, but we've naturally drifted apart over the last year (we've had different groups of friends and they have been a lot more busy). Parts of that drifting have been very hard, but I think by Friday night I'd already let go and said goodbye.

Back to Mental Thanksgiving Preparations!

Music & Recent Happenings

I guess I haven't posted what I've been up to recently, so here goes...

November 1st we finished the 12 Week Challenge! Though neither of us saw much of a difference in pounds, we both lost some inches, so that's great.

The weekend of November 3rd we went to Houston to celebrate Joe's Dad's birthday (which was Halloween). It was also exciting because he was starting a new job the Monday after we left! We got to spend some good time with Joe's parents and sister.

The next week we started our new schedule - since the Challenge was over, we needed a workout routine, and decided to add in some time for a few other things (like music and reading) we want to set aside time for. We now are doing our own Book Club. Just the two of us, even though that's a little funny. I got to pick the first book, so we both read a book that was my favorite in high school - Michael Crichton's Sphere. It was a good, quick read. I don't think Joe's picked the next book yet.

Last Friday night we went to a Ross King concert in Bryan. He's a gifted songwriter, and though he leads worship at our church, we rarely get to see him perform. It was great! We had also planned to see Clairmont that night (they were playing later nearby), but Joe started feeling sick to his stomach, so we went home. The next day he still felt nauseous, and had congestion and a fever. I was also all stopped up. We took it pretty easy all weekend, enjoying lots of chicken and dumplings. Joe missed some work the beginning of the week, but I think he's now mostly better.

This Friday is my little sister's 23rd birthday (weird - I feel about 24), so we'll get to celebrate with her. It's also the going away party for some friends of ours, which will be sad.

MOST EXCITING... a week or so ago, Joe finished recording a song he's been working on a while! It's an a cappella version of Ross King's "In Need". Yours truly also makes a cameo in this one. He also started a MySpace page with this song and two others. Check it out: http://myspace.com/joepeebles and add him as a friend if you do MySpace. If you'd like to have an mp3, let us know. And next time you see Joe, be sure to tell him how awesome he is!

Random Pictures

Joe seems to think I take interest in (and therefore, pictures of) some random things. I guess he's right, but they really seem interesting to me at the time! And, with a digital camera, my taking random pictures habit has only grown. Here's a few examples from the last couple of weeks:

I have a basil (which I keep accidentally pronouncing "basal") plant that I bought from A&M. When I planted it in the pot, I found a brown caterpillar on it. After chastising the little bug, I put him outside. Later that week, many more leaves had died on the plant. After some inspection, I found a green caterpillar with a guilty expression on his face (he also got moved to the front yard). A week later, the plant looked horrible and I ended up finding 5 more little green caterpillars! My stern talking-to had apparently not worked. Each time I had pulled off all the partially eaten leaves (because I was afraid it was a disease killing it), so I was surprised with even more leaves looked bad the week before now. I pulled off the bad leaves, and in the pile found a chubby green caterpillar. Here goes:


Next, an injury. For the 12 Week Challenge we had an obstacle course to compete in. It involved running, stooping under something while running, going up and down a LOT of bleachers, mini-hurtles, throwing a weighted ball, doing dips, and more running. We had to do three laps. Now my middle name, Anne, means graceful. People who know me well have pointed out that it must mean full-of-grace (in the forgiving sense) and not mean be actually being graceful (in the ballerina sense). They are right, and it gets much, much worse when I'm tired. To cut the story short, on the second lap I ended up tripping on a hurtle and slamming into the ground. I landed mostly on my right knee and left hip, so that's where the worst of the bruising happened, though scrapes could be found in many more places. Thanks almost entirely to the encouragement of others, I finished all three laps! (Life-lesson: dips on very cold bleachers when your hands have been scraped raw are VERY painful!) I walked funny for a couple of days, but recovered. I thought about taking a picture of the wind pants I had on (with a huge hole in them), but abstained. They were my favorite pair, you'll probably still see me wearing them. Here's part of the bruise on my hip almost a week after the incident (sadly, the biggest part is cut off, but you can see it start on the bottom left):
Finally, another caterpillar-like thing. This is from just tonight (yes, this is how I spend some of my Saturday nights). Joe ran in (after I had spent 15 minutes photographing the creature both inside and outside) and said he got dibs on blogging rights. So I guess I will just show the pictures: (Yes, he had red stripes. No, I did not touch him.)

edit: If you have trouble finding the green caterpillar, he's on the middle leaf on the right half of the picture.

P.P.S. Turns out, Joe was kidding when he said he had dibs on the caterpillar story (because it was obvious that I cared about it and he didn't). Oh well, I'll leave room for a little mystery. kp

Personality Test

These are the results from two 74-question tests, which I'm sure are completely accurate and the ultimate authority on such matters. Oh well, enjoy.