Happy Mom's Day!

It's so good being back in Birmingham (briefly) showing the house today and taking my mom to breakfast this morning. My nephew came along as well. I guess it isn't hard to tell who the eaters are in my family! It's the ones who show up for breakfast.

Here I am with my mom and I'm shoving ice or something in my mouth, dumping water down my shirt and being a wrecking ball even back then.

At races I'm still dumping water and ice down my shirt. Some things never change!

I made sure I ran with Little L this morning before the breakfast pig-out fest. We ran our usual 10 mile loop and I have to say, I am going to miss running with her on our familiar loop. I ran yesterday with our little group too. We ran almost 9 miles of every hill we could find in Mountain Brook, except the big one on the Statue to Statue 15k. That one is on the other side of Mountain Brook and we didn't run that long.

One thing I never do on Mother's day anymore is ride my bike. My worst bike crash ever happened on Mother's Day about 15 years ago. I landed right on my head and ended up in the hospital with a concussion and plenty of road rash, not knowing what happened or how old I was or where I was even though I was told a billion times. No short term memory. I fully recovered (my husband would argue that point) except for a scar on one of my shoulders.

I was out of the hospital the next day, but to this day I never bike on Mother's Day. In the past, I would do Gulf Coast triathlon on the Saturday before Mother's day so I was "recovering" on Mother's day, no chance of getting on my bike. I wouldn't have anyway!

The Boy is still at school and plans to stay there and work this summer. He was accepted into a research project with some of his professors and a few other computer students. I knew the Boy wouldn't remember that it's Mother's Day so I of course I called to remind him that he needed to wish me a happy Mother's Day! Lord knows I earned it with that kiddo!

The Boy is taking care of his cat, Phantom, who has heart disease and has to take medication every day. I've called him the last couple of mornings to remind him to give the cat the meds and by the time I call, he's already given them to Phantom. I was worried that he would forget, but it looks like the Boy is taking good care of the cat. He was really glad to see Phantom and Phantom seemed happy too.

Phantom is such a boy's cat. He loves hanging out with the Boy and his friends. He just tolerates me. They both do! That's okay because I'm tolerable.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there!

Christmas Party

Friday night we had our 2nd annual Christmas party.  It was a small gathering since it's so close to Christmas and we had several friends who couldn't make it because they were either out of town or had other family obligations.  We put 7:30 on the Evite, but when nobody was here at 8:15 we thought for sure that nobody was going to show up.  The Murph and I got excited and thought we would be able to put on our pj's and watch a movie.  Then everyone showed up at once.   We ended up having about a dozen people.  We thought they wouldn't stay long and move on somewhere else for a late night drink or two somewhere other than our house, but at midnight they were all still here.  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  The Murph and I ended up having a great time after we got over the disappointment that we wouldn't be able to put on our pj's just yet.

I made sausage balls, sweet and spicy nuts, crab and avocado on toasted baguettes, stuffed olives, 2 kinds of chips and dips,  fruit and cheese trays, and ricotto and honey bruschetta  I picked up a veggie platter, cheese straws, petitie fours, wedding cookies and peppermint bark.

Everybody brought their choice of wine to drink, but I made a champagne punch with cranberry juice and frozen orange juice and had soft drinks and other bar mixers and liquors set out, including egg nog and rum.

I didn't get a lot of pictures of everyone once they got here and the Babysitter showed up late and refused to have her picture made because she knew they would be all over Facebook the next day.  So these are all I managed to get.

Everybody must have had a good time because nobody would leave so The Murph had to throw them all out promptly at midnight.  It was way past our bedtime.  We are not in our twenties anymore!   We slept in on Saturday and were totally useless the entire day.  

We didn't even get our workout in on Saturday which is almost unheard of!  I made up for it today by running 10 miles with little L (former Running Nazi) and then going to the gym and spinning for 30 minutes and about 10 minutes of weights.  

After running I finished up the rest of my Christmas shopping early this morning and picked up a honey baked ham at the HoneyBaked ham store.  I love those things!  It was great not having to wait in lines or dodge traffic!  No crowds at the mall yet!  Only us runners that early on a Sunday morning.  I was home by 10 a.m.  

Now I just have to wrap everything and get ready for my family and the Babysitter to come over Christmas day for lunch.  And the Boy comes home tonight from his dad's house.