38th Annual Turkey Bowl

One Thanksgiving tradition we continue year after year is the annual Turkey Bowl (2009, 2008).  This year, consistent with the past two years, I kicked a 15 yarder.  I really should start working on this skill year round so I can finally get a 20 yarder next year...I seem to have stagnated!  Anyway, it was a blast.  I can't remember what everyone else kicked, but Chris made 40 yards and we all got it over at least once.  My cousin Michael - the reigning champion - made it from 50 yards when they kicked out in Cali.

We kicked before dinner on Thursday in Leesburg.  I took it upon myself to climb up on some tower contraption that they record practice from to take pictures.  After that guy died at Notre Dame up on one of those things, you better believe I was careful!

It was quite gray outside compared to last Thanksgiving, and definitely cold!

After we headed over to Chris' family's house, we kicked again - this time in pitch dark!  I don't think Chris or I even got it over once this time, but all his sisters and his brother did.

Overall it was a success.  I'm looking forward to next year's competition already.  Though I'm not sure anyone will ever dethrone my cousin!

Pictures from Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was, of course, wonderful!  We got to spend time with both our families and enjoy a lot of relaxing and game playing before heading back into the swing of things.  I don't have much to say about the time we had at home except that we had a lot of fun and definitely caught up on sleep while we were gone!  When I can, I'll post more about what we did during the week, but for now, just enjoy our Thanksgiving in pictures.

(Last picture courtesy of Chris' mom)

We didn't have much in the way of traffic on our way back home yesterday for which I am extremely grateful.  Since over an hour of our trip takes us down 95 south, we were expecting the worst but we left early and made it through without issue.  We are already excited about going home to visit again for Christmas in less than a month!  There's just something about wearing sweatpants all day long and playing board games that says "winter" and "the holidays" to me!

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We just wanted to share what we are thankful for this holiday:

- FAMILY that we get to relax and spend time with this week. Family that supports and loves us and enjoys spending time with us, too!
- Great homemade food, cooked by our moms.
- Not having to host Thanksgiving dinner again this year - it was a lot more work than I thought it would be (despite the fact that my mom still did most of it!) and we just love being home for the weekend!
- My brother, who seems to have fixed my 7 year old computer so we hopefully don't have to buy a new one quite yet!
- Having jobs that we both enjoy, a roof over our heads, and money to pay the bills.
- Awesome friends that like to get together, reminisce and have fun.
- Our continued health.
- The upcoming Christmas season and all that comes with it - trees, decorations, visiting family and friends, etc.

We hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for?

Recreational reading

With the holidays right around the corner, Chris and I are enjoying the peace of the season.  In the spirit of peace and relaxation, we've hit up the library a number of times to rent books and movies.  It's wonderful that we now have access to three libraries!  The county library was closed for renovations (they were moving to a bigger building) much of last year and they still haven't seemed to quite replenish their book selection, and the library at the school where I work carries mostly academic books and classics - not much in the way of new, popular books.  They certainly have a few, but since it's an all-male school, they just don't have quite the selection of books in which I'm interested!  The library at the school where Chris works has many of the books on my list that I wanted to read last year but couldn't find anywhere.  The equipment their catalog system runs on leaves a bit to be desired though...

My favorite part of this new library has to be this area under the stairs:

I would be seriously interested in one day having an entire room in my house dedicated to a set up similar to this one.  Only time will tell if that will become a reality!

Leaves

All the leaves on the trees around here are falling!  I love it, but I know it's only a matter of time before everything becomes brown and gray for the winter season.  Chris took this picture outside his office at work.  For some perspective he put his foot on the leaf - Chris wears a very large shoe size, and this leaf is much bigger than his shoe!  You could use that thing as an umbrella!

Already, many of the trees have completely lost their leaves and are starting to look a bit drab.  It's just a great reminder for everyone to get out there and enjoy this fall weather before it turns too cold! 

On another note, this morning my computer died at work and by this afternoon they had already replaced the hard drive and gotten it back up and running.  I only wish our personal computer issues were that easy...!

Back already

As you all are probably aware due to ESPN's 24 consecutive hours of basketball yesterday, college basketball is back in season again.  This is a joyful time for Chris.  Last weekend we headed up to Charlottesville to see the Tribe kick-off their season.  The ending score wasn't the greatest, but it was fun to be up there, get excited about their season, and see what they are capable of.

And as always, I love visiting Charlottesville for the friend and Chipotle benefits, as well :)

The rest of our weekend was pretty uneventful!  This was our first weekend in six weeks that we spent at home with no visitors.  We relaxed, got ready for our last full week of work before Thanksgiving, and just generally enjoyed making a mess and not worrying about cleaning it up right away!

Anti-computer aura

Quite unfortunately both of our computers at home are not functioning properly.  We were able to get them on for short spurts of time this weekend (20 minutes here, 15 minutes there) and inevitably they'd shut down and give us the blue screen.  My computer is 7 years old, so it's not terribly surprising, and the other one we were given for free from a friend second-hand.  We're not too upset because we've been kind of expecting them to go soon, but of course, we're always hoping we can put off buying a new computer and extend their life a little longer.  I have one more trick up my sleeve that I'm going to try and if that doesn't work I'm going to see if my brother can work his magic over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Anyway, all that is to say that Chris and I don't have much access to the computer or internet at home in the meantime (besides on his blackberry).  

To complicate things, I think my computer at work is about to die!  Last week it made a rhythmic clicking noise and then shut down, so I backed everything up and am hoping it won't fully give out any time soon.  I must be giving off some kind of anti-computer aura lately...

For now, enjoy this picture of our pumpkin before we tossed it out:

It went from being this scary, creepy pumpkin to looking like an old man who is losing his teeth!

OCC

Chris has been planning an Operation Christmas Child event at work for the last couple months.  He has been spearheading this as a way for student-athletes to get involved in some service work.  There were a couple hiccups along the way, but it all came together this week with the packing party.

The event ended up being a huge success with athletes from all teams showing up to participate.  The room was far too small for everyone.  People were standing shoulder to shoulder and the hallway outside was full, too!  I guess he'll know to get a bigger place for next year...

I picked up pizzas in town to drop off over there for the party and here it is three days later and my car still smells like pizza.  I've been driving with the windows down on my way home from work but to no avail so far.  We'll see how long it lasts!

Last minute visit

Last weekend our friends Ashley and Alex flew out unexpectedly and last minute to visit all of us living in Virginia.  We came together in no time at all and had a great time doing nothing but catching up and relaxing!

And when I say  we didn't do much, I actually mean that we didn't do much!  We played cards, watched football, and hung out in sweat pants.  I took a grand total of three pictures this weekend - the two above, and this one, for obvious reasons: 

Chris and I had originally planned to stay home and do normal things like go to church (we haven't been to church in Farmville in a long time!) but when they called to say they found a good deal and were coming out we were thrilled!  It's our plan again this coming weekend to stay home and catch up on normal things, so we'll see how that works out for us :)

Sloooowwwwwwww day

Today has been one of the slowest Fridays I can remember.  At noon I thought it was already 4pm.  It feels like the day before a holiday break - people are rolling out early and around now it's starting to get really quiet in the hallway.  Several things have only added to this long, long day:

1.  I forgot my coffee this morning, again.  That makes twice in one week.  And I haven't ever forgotten it before this week.  Tuesday's incident can be blamed entirely on the election, but for today I have no excuse.  I had to settle for a cup of caffeine-free Chamomile tea instead.  And let's be honest - that is not a substitute. I feel like I might be a little crankier this afternoon because of that.

2.  Next week our "new" president (of the college) is getting inaugurated.  I say "new" because this is his second year already.  Anyway, that event adds to the slowness of today because many of the offices on campus are busy-busy getting prepared for that event.  That means they have less time to send out emails, which means my inbox has been lacking in correspondence today.  And everyone knows how compulsively checking your email inbox to see if you're missing anything direly important makes your day inch right along!

3.  Chris and I are going out of town this weekend so I actually have a lot of stuff to do!  We were originally planning on being home for the weekend, but a friend called (yesterday, actually!) to say she was coming into town and I haven't had time to get ready yet!  The worst thing about a slow day is feeling anxious about all the stuff you need to accomplish in a short period of time that you can't do right now because you're not home.  Every couple minutes I glance down at my list wondering if I can knock anything off right now, and of course, I can't :)  Here's to the weekend!

A scary experience

So on to our scary experience of Halloween weekend... Some of Chris' friends from work were having a bonfire at a farm nearby and we decided to go for awhile.

The bonfire was at a sweet house that had giant iron gates, crocodile statues, a suit of armour and tribal masks.  We were having a pretty good time early on.

The bonfire was going well, but the wood for burning was actually located in a massive pile through a couple cattle gates a few hundred yards out into the middle of a pasture nearby.  It was pitch black outside and we knew there were cows out there so we hurried through out to the pile with a single flashlight quickly.  Once we made it out to the pile, tripping through a little bit of mud and some uneven ground, we started collecting some wood.

Maggie, who was in charge of the flashlight scanned our surroundings just to make sure all was clear before we started heading back to the bonfire when she saw something.  Just through some trees, there seemed to be a bunch of legs floating in the air.

We got a little closer and it started looking more and more like human legs - it looked like a bunch of people had been hung and they were left out there on a tree.  We were absolutely terrified but had to get closer for another look.  I mean, this could not be serious.

Well lo-and-behold, they were people!  But they weren't hanging!  They were statues of children - a massive graveyard full of statues of children playing baseball.  In the middle of a wooded area in a pasture.  That in itself is a little creepy if you ask me!  But then we saw these:

You can only imagine how terrified we were standing in the middle of a giant field with only one flashlight and creepy statues and livestock surrounding us on all sides.  We got out of there real quick.
Halloween night was actually less eventful.  For one thing, last year we lived in the most popular trick-or-treating neighborhood in town so it was crazy busy and this year we live in a less family-oriented apartment complex.  I'm a little bummed I didn't get to see all those cute little kids in their costumes this year!  Second, since Halloween was on a Sunday night this year, I think there were less people out.  I saw more people in costumes on Friday at the grocery store than I did on Sunday!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend!

Don't forget to vote

Lucky for us, Chris decided to double check last night where the polls at which we were supposed to vote were located.  Good thing he checked because since we moved across town, we have a new polling location!  It certainly would have been annoying to go to the one we went to last year and get told we weren't allowed to vote there.  It was pretty much the same as last year except this year we knew not to leave too early.  We weren't expecting a line this time and so we only left 10 minutes before we normally do for work.  I was still a minute or two earlier to work than I normally am :)

The most exciting experience of the morning was that we got stuck behind a tractor driving about 12 miles an hour toward our polling location...

The least exciting part of the experience was that I forgot my coffee at home this morning :(  It was in a travel mug so I could just drink when I got to work and I left it sitting on the counter... I've been thinking about it longingly all morning.

(That picture is solely for your entertainment.  It is not meant to be a work of art.  But yes, in case you're wondering, that is an accurate representation of our kitchen.)

Happy Halloween!

We focused on the holiday this weekend just like everyone else out there!  I had some friends come in to town and we carved pumpkins, baked pumpkin seeds (both sweet and salty kinds!), made apple cider, ate pumpkin cheesecake (courtesy of Maggie's fiancee), and even had a terrifying experience!  More on that one later...

My pumpkin liked to creep up on Maggie's jolly pumpkin unsuspectingly :)

Anyway, it was an awesome weekend - who doesn't love celebrating holidays?