Christmastime is Here

The mil10 Christmas tree has been up since Veterans Day weekend. It has been a tradition for eleven years now to put it up early. Originally, we did this so we wouldn't have to put up the tree at the same time that EK was due. We put up the tree early that year and have done so ever since.

Although the tree has been up, it never looked fully finished. It was missing one thing. The presents! Today we wrapped all of the presents that we bought on Black Friday. mr. mil10 wrapped the gifts in paper. mrs. mil10 glued on all of the bows. Now the presents sit under the tree waiting to be given away.

Once all of the gifts have been passed out, the tree will look funny again.

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012

Happy New Year from the mil10s!

Trotting with the Turkeys

This Thanksgiving the mil10s participated in the largest Thanksgiving Day event of its kind in the country.  The 44th Annual Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot draws nearly 40,000 participants each year.  mr. mil10, mrs.  mil10, and EK were among the many that participated in the turkey day tradition.  Unfortunately Modie took ill and couldn't join us in the day's festivities. 

Lots of port-a-potties for lots of racers!

When we left Home Town, Texas, the visibility was 0.  

It wasn't much better in Dallas when we arrived.

 The pre-race activities took place in front of Dallas City Hall.

Many people got ready...

...by donning a turkey costume...

...in order to set a new Guinness World Record 

for the most people dressed as turkeys at an organized event. 

 

 Ready to race!

There were many unusual hats!  It was hard to take their picture without being obvious.

On you mark, get set, go! 

 As you can see, the fog didn't burn off as much as they expected.  

The unusual weather did provide many unique views of downtown Dallas.

Looking up into the fog.

After the race EK and mr. mil10 fought through the crowds of people 

to pick up a few post-race snacks.

Our next stop after the race was Highland Park Cafeteria for Thanksgiving lunch.  We were greeted by an employee serving their popular zucchini muffins to patrons as they waited in a line that extended out of the building and around the corner.  Although mr. mil10 jokingly (and somewhat seriously) expected to be dining with a bunch of sad and lonely people, the restaurant was filled to near-capacity with families of all types.  The couple waiting behind us in line drove from Tyler, Texas to eat their annual Thanksgiving meal at HPC. Compared to everyone else, the mil10s were considerably underdressed as we were still wearing our race apparel.  However, we were not alone as we spotted at least three other Turkey Trotters dining at HPC as well.

We had a great Thanksgiving!  We will probably trot again.  We will probably eat at Highland Park Cafeteria again.  We will definitely continue to be thankful for all of the blessings God has given to us!

Ten Years Old

2001 

2011

It is hard to believe that our boy is now in the double digits!  Yesterday, he officially became a ten year old.  Everyone always said to enjoy the time you have because it will pass by quickly.  Boy, were they right!  Time has definitely flown by.

Happy birthday, EK!

Happy Birthday

Today was an unusual day. mr. mil10 had the day off from school while mrs. mil10 and EK had school as usual.

Since EK's birthday takes place during the upcoming school holiday, today was the day for mr. mil10 to take a Harry Potter cupcake-cake to EK's school for an afternoon snack for EK and his classmates.

EK stood in a chair at the front of the room while the class sang happy birthday. He then had the job of separating each cupcake from the cupcake-cake and passing out a cupcake to each classmate. After passing out the first one, EK realized how messy his job would be. His fingers were covered in icing! If you were responsible for passing out cupcakes to everyone in your class and had messy fingers, what would you do? EK's solution was to lick the extra icing right off of his fingers! As gross as it seemed to me, it didn't seem to bother anyone else.

Happy birthday, EK--germs and all!

If you look closely you can see Harry Potter catching the golden snitch!

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Fireworks

For the Fourth of July Hometown, Texas put on a nice firework display.  Everyone drove to the park or to the nearby Lowe's parking lot to watch the display.  We opted for the parking lot.

Waiting for the sun to set.

Auntie Em and Baby B found us in the parking lot and came by for a quick pose in front of the camera.  Could that me a Peru shirt she is sporting?  She says even though it was questionable to represent another country on "our birthday," she had to wear it since she had already worn all of her patriotic clothes and it was the only thing she had left that was red.

Playing with my camera settings in the dark, I was not totally sure what setting I was using and I wasn't sure if any of the pictures would look very good.  Over the course of the show I used about fours settings.  About three of those settings were used accidentally.

Of the 99 pictures I took that night, many were either not in focus or caught the firework explosion too late or too early. Anyway, these were the best.

Happy birthday, America!

All in all, we were quite impressed with the display!

Time in Tyler

Today we celebrated the first weekday of Spring Break by driving to Tyler, Texas to visit Kara.    We started the day together at Caldwell Zoo.  It was a cold morning, but we braved the temperatures in order to beat the crowds.  Naturally, we were at the front of the line to get into the zoo!

This truck was in the children's play area.  They loaded in like a bunch of hillbillies.

It seems that we always find an unusual animal at the zoo.  This penguin was molting.

I can't remember if this was an anaconda or a boa.  Either way, I am glad we were separated by a layer of glass.

Cheetahs resting.

People resting.

After the zoo, Kara directed us to Jucys for hamburgers.  We learned that the junior burger is plenty of burger for one person.  While you are waiting for your food to cook, try the complimentary beans.  They were very good.  For those familiar with hometown's very own CB's, the hamburger meat was comparable, but the buns were not nearly as greasy.  While we were there we spied another Jucys patron that was eating a large bowl of bacon cheese fries.  Perhaps those will have to be ordered if we make a return trip.  No one in our group was disappointed with their meal. 

I am not sure why my burger was upside-down for this picture.

How do you finish a trip to Tyler?  After a quick trip to the mall to walk off some of our lunch, we had to make one last stop at Andy's Frozen Custard.  We have never ordered anything that disappointed us.  Today's treats were a thin mint concrete (thin mint cookies mixed into vanilla frozen custard) and a concrete almonds concrete (almonds and coconut mixed into vanilla frozen custard).