Fitness Update

Thought I would do a brief update on what's going on fitness wise in the Zyriek house. Unfortunately it is great news for me but not so great news for my better half. Not too long after the St. Jude Marathon, in which I ran and Gary served as the race crew and ran further than me that day, Gary started to have some pain in his knee. He thought maybe it was a fluke and tried to run a few other times. Gary really is in tune with his body and knew something was wrong. He went to the doctor and she thought he had tweaked it and gave him some anti-inflammatory meds and suggested he try running a short distance again soon. That flopped, so off to the MRI he went. Turns out he had a small vertical tear in his miniscus in his knee....the same knee he had miniscus surgery on before the kids were born. Not Gary's favorite memory and not the news he wanted to hear!! Gary needed to stay off of his knee for 4-6 weeks to hopefully allow it time to heal on its own. Gary swam at first but was advised by his mom during her visit at New Year's to stay completely off the knee and allow the swelling to go away. This was a hard thing for Gary to digest. My constantly active and competitive husband was banned from running, biking and swimming!!

So, what did I do? Sign up for a half marathon in Birmingham, AL the weekend of President's Day. Gary joked that I needed some long training runs to escape the insanity of him not being able to work out!! My training was going to be short...just 6 weeks but I really wanted a chance at a cold weather half marathon since Memphis turned out to be super warm and I was slower than I wanted to be. So I amped up my training shooting for a PR in Birmingham on February 17th. Stay tuned for results!!

New Years Vitals

New Year's Day 2013....

 Anna
Age: 9 years old
Height: 4 foot 11 inches....and counting!!
Shoe size: 7 (almost in my shoes!)
Favorite subject: Math
Favorite toy: Ipad mini
Favorite food: Pizza
What she wants to be: CEO of a fashion magazine
Favorite sport: Basketball
Favorite place: Beach

Caroline
Age: 6 years old
Height: 3 foot 11 inches
Shoe size: 13
Favorite subject: Math
Favorite toy: American Girl dolls
Favorite food: Lenny's
What she wants to be: Teacher
Favorite sport: Soccer
Favorite place: South Dakota

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