happy holidays.

i know it's already after christmas, but i guess i just got too busy/forgot to post the 2012 edition of our holiday card for you all to see.

so here it is:

hope you all had holly jolly christmases!

you can see our 2011 christmas card here and our card from 2010 here.

holiday happenings.

austin and i just got back from a big trip to virginia to see my family for the holidays. but first, we started with a few christmas celebrations here in tennessee.

austin and i did our christmas gift exchange on the 22nd, just the two of us. and juliet, of course.

on sunday, we actually hosted austin's family for the first time for christmas lunch. i pulled some red and green stuff together from around the house in attempt to create a christmas-y table.

after that, we headed over to ben's house where their family always has the heards over for christmas dinner.

then on christmas eve, we crammed everything in to packed the car to head to virginia. we arrived just in time for dinner at tim's sister's house. and then later on that we went to see my dad's side of the family.

{i don't know why we continue to take group pictures in this terribly lighted room... next year i'll try to remember to set up elsewhere}.

christmas day started with lunch at mom's with the whole gang.

followed by some target practice.

and more food at robin's parent's house. and i got to see my cousin jj who i haven't seen in forever because she moved to california!

{please ignore my frizzy hair from being outside shooting guns all day}

the rest of the week in virginia was spent just hanging out with my family, going bowling, out to eat, and finally watching the twilight series. don't judge. i just felt like i needed to see what i have been missing out on. spoiler alert: not much.

it was so good to see all of my family for the holidays. hopefully i won't have to wait an entire year to see them all again!

thankful.

even though i was about a month behind on my halloween post, i'm already prepared to share a thanksgiving post with you. keeping you on your toes, i guess.

austin and i started thursday by doing our usual thing of taking pictures for our christmas cards. i'm hoping by this point you've noticed the blog {and even my facebook} got a nice little update and i used some of the pictures we took for our card. but we actually got quite a few good ones, at least i think so.

and then, of course, we brought out the guns. literally. cause that's what people do on thanksgiving, right? actually this was the first time i ever shot a gun. and turns out i'm a pretty good shot. #scary

after photoshooting and gun shooting, we got to the main part of thanksgiving: the food. we had the usual thanksgiving menu items. and after a slight miscalculation on turkey frying time, i was thankful for my tofurkey as everyone else got to debate the edible-ness of the bird. this year i really stepped it up with my contribution to the meal by bringing tofurkey, macaroni and cheese, homemade bread, and french silk chocolate pie. and if i may so so myself, my food was delicious. but i might be a bit biased.

but since austin was really craving some turkey we decided to have a little thanksgiving do-over on our own. i was pumped to be able to set our table with the cute wooden turkeys we made this year.

and i even made us little place cards with pumpkins. austin made fun of me. jerk.

and even though i said it was a "little" do-over, we still had tons of food. turkey {for him}, potatoes, gravy, green beans, stuffing, mac and cheese, and bread. too much food, actually.

so anyway. i hope you all had a fabulous thanksgiving with your families/friends/whomever. i'm thankful for all of you. :) also, i missed my family very much and i can't wait to see you all for christmas!

oops... halloween.

so i know we all just stuffed ourselves on turkey tofurky for thanksgiving, but as i was uploading pictures of thanksgiving festivities i realized i never finished my post about halloween. so even though it's a bit late and irrelevant at this point, here ya go.

first, austin and i dressed as thieves for a halloween party at my friend shelley's house.

this butterfly/party host herself!

and, of course, austin and i carved awesome pumpkins. i carved the bat and he carved the creepy coffin. and also I FOUND MY SCARY PUMPKIN TEETH. i thought for sure that austin threw them away somehow they got misplaced. so last minute i made the scary pumpkin, too.

and i have to thank bun for giving me these cute little pumpkin men stands.

and on halloween, austin and i dressed up to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. he wore his thief costume and i wore my hello kitty costume {complete with pink eyelashes. thanks, momma!}.

and if by any weird, kinda creepy chance any of my neighbors are followers of my blog, we need to talk. listen, people. just because you are old and grumpy doesn't mean you get to act like halloween isn't a thing. next year go to the store, buy the cheapest candy you can, put a pumpkin on the porch and turn your lights on so the trick-or-treaters will come up the street to the end where our house is because none of you did that this year and so nobody came to our house and we had way, waaay too much candy and nobody even got to see our awesome decorations. and i cried.

true story.

so let's fix that before next year, yes?

birthday week extravaganza part 2

have you been sitting on the edge of your seat since i posted birthday week extravaganza part 1? no? oh, well. here's part two even if you weren't anxiously waiting...

for my birthday eve dinner, austin cooked me a delicious meal of vegetarian barbecue meatloaf and mashed potatoes at my request. he also made me quite possibly the best cake i've ever had. seriously. peanut butter cake with whipped cream and peanut butter icing topped with graham cracker crumbs, drizzled chocolate and chocolate shavings. oh. em. gee.

{somewhat unrelated and very blurry picture of my cute puppy begging for cake which she was of course given and loved every bite of it}

on the day of my birthday austin's family took us out to eat at fork and pie {one of my new favorite places}. i had the spinach orzo pie and chocolate chess pie for dessert. i highly recommend each of these.

thursday evening, we all went downtown to the aquarium.

i had an awesome birthday week, the celebrations just kept on and on and who could complain about that? thanks to everyone for the sweet cards, texts, phone calls, etc sending me birthday wishes. although i do have to say that the best call of them all was my momma calling to sing me our family's special birthday song. made. my. day.

so here's to the next 365 days of my life {less than that now, but you get the point} until my next birthday!

where you at, euclid?

dear people at the gym who run/walk/fail to control the flopping of your foot on the treadmill,

i am writing this letter to express concern for your fitness routine. although i commend your efforts to actually go to the gym and be physically active {the rest of america should really follow suit} i just wanted to let you know that...

you're doing it wrong.

and because i can't stand to watch you exercise incorrectly i just want to help you become the best you there is, i've taken the time to illustrate a few drawings on proper treadmill use. and just so you know, it's about angles, people. geometry and stuff like that.

so here you are walking/running on level ground. a great place to start. notice the angle between your body and the surface on which you are walking/running. hint: it's 90 degrees.

and just for comparison purposes, here you are climbing a mountain. look at you go! all this working out is really paying off. again, notice the angle between your body and the mountainside. hint: i didn't measure it but it's less than 90 degrees.

{note: image not drawn to scale}

and here you are again training for climbing up said mountainside by increasing the angle of your treadmill at the gym. you are dedicated. and i like it. yet again, you've got less than a 90 degree angle between your body and the walking/running surface. that's what makes it hard.

this is good. this is hard work. go, you.

however, i find that most of you don't actually utilize the incline on your treadmills as pictured above. rather you tend to use the incline like this:

holding on = cheating.

you see the angle you've created between your body and the treadmill there by hanging on? 90 degrees! we've already discussed that 90 degrees is the easy angle. so while you might feel like you look really impressive by using that incline setting and cranking it waaaay up, i'm not impressed. no one is.

image

didn't geometry teach you anything?

hope this helps you step up your gym game. and keep up the good work. and for the love of pete, let go of the treadmill.

sincerely,
rikki

p.s.- we'll discuss your inability to control the flopping down of your foot on the treadmill/lack of anterior tibialis strength at a later date. baby steps.

birthday week extravaganza part 1

in case you missed it, my birthday was wednesday. and in case you don't know me my birthday is kind of a big deal. so for the past week or so we've been celebrating my birthday with lots of fun activities.

{also, if you did miss the fact that it was my birthday we might not be friends anymore. just kidding. sort of.}

for starters, austin, ben and i went camping on the hiwassee at gee creek campground. i've been begging austin to take me camping for literally years and since i was on fall break from school combined with it being my birthday week austin had no choice but to take me.

so we borrowed the cr-v and packed it to the top. i don't really understand how three people and one dog need so much junk for one night of camping.

camping fashion. love it? please note my failure to pack a hair brush...

the park rangers had some animals for us to check out! this little owl had so much personality to him. he was so cute!

the ranger told us about the falls at the top of this trail and how people like to swim up there in the summer. and when we got to the top o.m.g. austin and ben jumped in! do you know how cold i was outside the water and in dry clothes? those crazy kids were freezing.

after lots of fishing, campfires and hiking our camping trip was over. and i needed a shower. but on the way out of town we decided to stop by the little winery we had seen signs and advertisements for, thinking we would try a few wines, see if we like it, and maybe add to our wine glass collection. however, when we arrived at the winery there was no.one. to be found. cars were in the lot, the "open" sign was lit up, doors were wide open,  but we saw not a single person. it was creepy. we waited a bit for someone to show up to the tasting room but no one ever came. i then came to the conclusion that someone had perhaps kidnapped/murdered everyone and we needed to get the heck out of there a.s.a.p.

i have a vivid imagination.

and since i'm sure you all noticed this post was titled "birthday week extravaganza part 1" you probably assume there is a "birthday week extravaganza part 2" coming soon. and you would be correct. so. yeah. sit right there on the edge of your seat for part 2. i know the suspense is killing you.