Grizzlies fun

For a little family fun over the holidays we took the girls to a Grizzlies game on Friday night. We had great seats thanks to a discount offer from First TN bank. It was Grizz girls night which means that everyone got a free poster of the Grizzlies Girls....not sure we needed that but the girls thought it was fun. The best part of the night, besides the fact that they won was that we ALL got on the dance cam. Gary was so embarrassed....I thought it was fun and the girls were beside themselves with joy. It was a little surreal to see yourself on the big jumbotron dancing away but all in all so much fun. Our phones were lighting up with messages from friends that saw us. Go Grizz!!

proud of their grizz girls posters

gary and the girls ready for the game to start!

Christmas Wrap Up

We had a different kind of Christmas this year. This was the first year that I would not see my dad or any siblings for the holidays. Kind of strange and different but it was still a great time for the Zyrieks. My dad and stepmother made the trip to Dallas for Christmas. I love that they were able to spend Christmas with my brother and his kids. That was the first time they have enjoyed that. They stayed for 10-12 days which was a fun visit for them.

The kids were in school through the 21st of December. Sounds late, but for working parents it was great.  We enjoyed the weekend before Christmas and then the kids were so excited they could not wait!

We had my mom and stepdad over for Christmas Eve dinner. We enjoyed the Candlelight service at Hope together and then came home and let the kids make their cookies for Santa. It was an enjoyable evening. Gary and I watched Christmas Story while waiting for the kids to go to sleep. Santa finished up about midnight at our house and the kids were up bright and early at 6am!! We were tired to say the least.

The kids had a great Christmas morning. Anna got an ipad mini and many things to redecorate her room once we get the new paint she will be ready to go. Caroline got a new bike as well as the "Caroline" American Girl doll. The girls were thrilled and were having fun at home for quite a while. We headed over to mom's house for most of the rest of the day.  The girls favorite present over there were skates! They skated for hours inside and outside (small amounts at a time since it was so cold!!). They even acted like the girls at Sonic on skates taking our drink orders before dinner.

We enjoyed brunch at mom's and a lazy afternoon. We came home and had dinner with the family and my parents came over so they could see all the girls haul from Santa and us. All in all a very fun and good day. Both Gary and I were off work the next day so we definitely enjoyed sleeping in and enjoying our very messy house!!

the happy bakers on christmas eve

last shot of the girls with all the presents actually wrapped!

caroline with her caroline doll

anna with her ipad mini....she was over the moon!

caroline with her new bike

gary with his new harding cap and auburn shirt

crazy sweaty girls after roller skating all afternoon

roller derby queen

sweet skater

Enchanted Forest/Festival of Trees

I cannot tell you how many time I have been to the Enchanted Forest. We used to go every year growing up and I remember that it was at Goldsmith's downtown. Such fun. I laugh because the characters are the same and they just keep getting older and older looking, but the kids still enjoy it. The Pink Palace is a good host for it and incorporates it into their Festival of Trees and their two Imax films that are related to Christmas. The girls always want to go and do the scavenger hunt and pick their favorite tree. We had a good family evening there and took in an Imax movie as well.

Anna with her favorite "Peace Sign" tree

Caroline with her favorite, the tree was made to look like a snowman

my favorite, the Charlie Brown tree

the girls on their scavenger hunt

our favorite gingerbread house from those submitted for judging

Breakfast with Santa

Caroline's school had a pancake breakfast with Santa the week before the holiday break. The kids were excited to be in non-uniform, have tasty pancakes for breakfast, get to tell Santa their wish list and enjoy sleigh rides in the parking lot! I was excited to have breakfast with Caroline that day and see her eyes sparkle as she confided in Santa what was on the top of her list. I had a 9am training class so had to miss the sleigh rides, but a fun new treat at school to enjoy this holiday season!

caroline was a little shy but enjoyed talking to santa

enjoying our yummy pancakes!

caroline and her friend marshall....they are a trip and have always been a little sweet on each other!

Anna's Christmas program

Much to Anna and a lot of other 4th graders dismay, the 4th grade talent show was turned into a Christmas program. In the past, the 1st graders did a Christmas program and every other grade did something different. Anna was excited about the possibility of working on something with her friends for the talent show. We have a new principal this year and we have new things on the horizon for the kids. One of which was to switch up the grade level programs. This year the 3rd and 4th graders combined to present a Christmas program. Anna ended up being the narrator which made her happy. She did sing one of the songs with her friends, Jingle Bell Rock, and did the dance that went along with it. They had a good time with small groups being the focal point for each song. It was cute and made everyone in the Christmas spirit.

anna with grampa and gramma after the show

mimi and papa watched the show as well

the zyrieks with our awesome narrator

anna with some of the 4th grade girls

anna with girls from her class

Gingerbread Houses

I signed the girls up to make gingerbread houses at the Children's Museum. That was such a great idea!!! The museum employees did such a great job with the activities. Each family had its own table with supplies arranged neatly on the table. We were all given aprons to wear, the girls were given elf hats to wear and take home and snacks to eat during the building process. The girls really enjoyed it. I loved that I did not have to clean up and we left with two great houses in boxes for transport. The girls sang Christmas carols when they were done and heard the story of the gingerbread man read by an employee of the museum. Great activity and we will definitely do that again.

my little elves are ready to get started

anna enjoying her own creation

caroline working hard on her house

their finished products

St. Jude Memphis Marathon weekend

So happy that the St. Jude half marathon week is here. I have been looking forward to running the race for so many months. I have already done three half marathons this year and was hoping for a personal record with this race to cap off a great year of progress. I started working with my running coach, Lesley, around the first of the year. I could not do anything she had set up for me to do. I started out way too ambitious. I got in a rhythm and became very dedicated to my schedule and my workouts. I was frustrated at first with my lack of progress and realized it would take some time to get a good base of running under my belt. I did the Germantown Half Marathon in March. Mentally it was not a good race. I did the St. Jude Country Music Half Marathon at the end of April. It was a very challenging course with lots of hills and high temps, but I pushed through it and did well. I then started the Memphis Runners Road Race series in July and built my way up through the 5k, 5 miler, 10k and 10 miler and was thrilled to finish the half marathon in early November at 2:06. My best ever time in a half marathon is 2:05 and that was many years ago. I got my sights set on a PR for St. Jude but the weather had different ideas. The temps at the starting line for my November race were in the mid 30's while at the St. Jude Memphis race it was nearly 60 degrees. That really does make a difference physically and mentally. I pushed through glad to see Gary along the way several times as he was one of the official Race Crew members. He met me at mile 12 and ran me into the finish line. I was so happy to have him with me for the last mile because it was getting hot and I was certainly tired. I finished in 2:13 which was slower than my goal, but I felt like I had really made great progress throughout 2012.

Now just working through what I want to do in 2013. I want to take December to really cross-train and keep up some basic running and then figure out for January where I want to be and where I want to race. Hoping for a second year of great results!

I have no pictures from the race unfortunately of myself! There are race photographers but I did not really want to order any of the shots they had. I don't run with a phone or an ipod so I did not get any finish line pictures. Oh well!! Just picture a tired runner ready to rest!! :)