Thanksgiving Fun at Perkins' Place

Eli and Uncle Dan at the end of an enjoyable evening.

Vivian was tickled to get to hold lil'Jed.

AJ curled up with 'Gramma' on the ottoman. We are a comfy bunch :)

Reese LOVED having Princess, Orvis and Boone to play with him and AJ for the night. They played with toys that have sat untouched for months...!

As you can see, the boys were quite tired after their company left for the evening. We had a wonderful time having family over. Holidays are fantastic but are much more fun with family to enjoy them with.

The triumph of the night was in capturing this family photo. The rest of the dogs were sent out of the house because the first photo was mostly hound hiney...

Tour de Gruene

So, I participated in my first organized cycling event. Dan and I drove down to New Braunfelds on Friday night so we could get a good night of sleep before getting up early and going to Gruene for the annual Tour de Gruene.

We've gone to Wurstfest for three years in a row now. We just love all of that fun Oompah music and great German food but this year I suggested that we participate in the Saturday morning cycling tour of Gruene. I think it surprised Dan that I would make such an insane suggestion. The tour distances were 15, 30, and 40 miles. Considering I had only gone 3 miles at a time previously I was nervous about signing up for the 15 mile tour! Dan was awesome, he stayed with me even though that meant he only got to go 10 miles an hour (on average) for the next two hours!

Within the first ten minutes on the bike we saw the aftermath of what I would describe as a gory wreck. The lady cyclist was laying on the ground, her bike bent several yards away in the grass, bleeding from her head, moaning and struggling to stay conscious. Talk about nervous. At that point I was ready to hop off the bike and walk back up to the starting line. But I kept going, with my personal cycling trainer by my side, and had a fantastic day.

It took me about 1hr 45minutes to pedal 15 miles and I know that must sound tediously slow to everyone out there but I was so pleased with my ride for the day. I did have to walk up two hills, not necessarily because I couldn't pedal up but because so many people in front of my stopped to walk and I couldn't get around them safely. Honestly I think it saved my legs for later.

I don't have any of the tour photos to share but I do have some of the photos I took of Dan's individual time trial from later that day. Lance Armstrong participated in the annual event and I got some photos of him as well. Dan won his age group and Lance won overall with a time difference of 6minutes 50seconds. Pretty sweet huh?

Dan just coming out of the chute.

Dan coming up on the finish line (just out of the photo frame to the right).

Lance getting ready to change after his warm-up loop.

Lance starting his competitive loop of the time trial course.

I had to include this photo because you can see Dan's name at the bottom of the photo with his time and then Lance's name at the top of the shot. I just thought it was neat to capture their names together (in the same place) for an event.

The flowers were only props for the winner's photos! Not that we need dried flowers with feather accents around our house (although Abby and Silas would love that...) but I found it funny that the top placers for each division took photos with the same flowers.