It's the holidays!
So sorry for the lack of posts, but it's been a whirlwind around here since mid-October. Now that we've had a chance to relax a bit, see family, and watch tv for the first time in MONTHS, it's time to share what we did this week! (I won't bore you with the details of the past few months.)
Before we get too far though, forgive the organization of this post and picture placement. I'm writing this on my phone while we're on our way from Newark back to Indy, so this is a big experiment!
Ben and I worked on Christmas Eve, he at Arête and me at InRunCo. It was my first scheduled shift in over two years! We stayed extremely busy from 10am-3pm.
After work, we celebrated Christmas with Gma B, the Thompsons, and Uncle Bob/Aunt Patty. As usual.... Lots of food. Ben impressed everyone by downing about 1/4 of a super dense Bakehouse chocolate cake. Seriously. A brick of chocolate. He ate it. We took off and headed to see my mom in Newark, OH and arrived around 1am in time for the bet part of the day: bed!
Christmas Day, we spent with my mom and then went to celebrate in Cleveland with my sister and grandparents. As usual... More food. We did gifts and stuff too-- Megan's a ridiculously good gift giver, even though she doesn't think so. I'm always excited to be on the receiving end. Always some kind of cool surprise!! This year she got me a necklace she found on etsy- a pyrite necklace on a gold chain. Really cool statement necklace! I'm not sure if this had anything to so with the rock collections I had as a kid... 'Cause she doesn't even know about my recent geode discovery/obsession! Well played! I found/made/purchased some fun stuff for our families at Christmas this year... We haven't given them all out yet, but I'll share with you shortly for your future gifting ideas!
After Christmas we went shopping in Wrstlake while there was a blizzard going on. Do you know how awesome and not-crowded it is when you're at an outdoor mall during severe weather?? Even Ben got into a shopping mood! All in all, it was a weak blizzard- maybe 6 or 7 inches total, while Bloomington saw almost 12.
Later, we hung out with Ben, pretty much fave from high school, and went to Dave and Buster's for lack of anything more fun. D&B is one of those places that I won't go out of my way to visit but when I do it's always fun. We killed it at skeeball, football, and basketball. But not so much on the cyclone game. We both believe it's rigged!
We hung out at Megan's house and met Aaron's two dogs, making this a four-canine household. The dogs are enormous... And generally nice-ish, but neither ones I would want to meet in a dark or fenced alley. They are destroyers. (See exhibits a and b). In Newark, I got to spend some qiality time with my kitty, Nikki!! She's getting tiny- she only weighs 5 pounds now (less than Todd the bunny). Ben did surprisingly well in a cat house, allergies stayed mostly in check with the help!
It snowed a bit in Newark too, and lots of areas still haven't been cleared. We ran on a multipurpose path that was totally snow-covered. I grumped about that for a while... C'mon, give me some easy and mindless road running!
More shopping, this time at Easton (bought a new coat!!! Ahhhh!!!!!), with mom. If you're not familiar with Easton, just know that it is shopping Mecca. I mean, i miss college largely because I miss Easton. :) in Bloomington - and Indiana in general - shopping isn't quality enough to be a social activity like it is in old Columbus town!
And then mom took Ben and I to have our first experience with Jeni's Ice Cream at the North Market. Ho-ly ICE CREAMY GOODNESS!!!! The girl behind the counter didn't even get mad when I sampled almost 20 flavors... I settled on a scoop each of sweet corn & blackberry and the lime.
And that's the past week! It doesn't feel like we've been off of work for almost 5 days, and we are about to have more to report with our New Year's party and 5-hour running adventure tomorrow.
Until next time, friends!
