Merry Christmas

We had a lot of fun today. My day started with an awesome racewalk during which I enjoyed the Christmas lights and the peace & quiet in the neighborhood. It was about 10 degrees, so pretty cold, but beautiful. Good news...the no treats for the past few weeks has paid off. The scale read 147.0 this morning :). Of course, after the treats I enjoyed today it might not stay that low. No, seriously, I did indulge but had saved points, and I exercised a lot, so probably will be OK.

After returning home, I got a quick shower and made some coffee, and my parents showed up. Calvin was awake and ready to see what Santa brought - so fun to see how excited he was! Michelle was still asleep, so Loren went in to wake her up. She said, "Don't wake up me, Daddy. Don't wake up ME!". 3 1/2 year old grammar is totally cute sometimes.

Once she was up, however, she was so thrilled to see that Santa had brought her a toy kitchen. She and Calvin both loved it, and they also loved their stockings, full of candy, fruit (pears and grapefruit, which seemed to be as much of a hit as the chocolate!), crayons, coloring books, and more. The cutest thing she said all morning was very early on - she had looked at her new kitchen carefully for 30 seconds or so, and then she said, "But there's NO FOOD!". She really wanted some toy food! Calvin then pointed at a present with her name on it, and she opened it immediately - it just happened to be one that had some toy food in it :). Very funny!

Speaking of food, we had the traditional Christmas bread my mom makes for breakfast, plus some pineapple, and of course, chocolate from our stockings. Later in the day we snacked on veggies and a light dip, a few crackers, and a cheese ball (I ate very few crackers and skipped the cheese to save calories for the good stuff). Then we had a beef roast for dinner, asparagus w/hollandaise, spring mix salad with walnuts, apples, feta, and homemade raspberry vinaigrette, and some more pineapple. For dessert, we enjoyed a peppermint stick torte I made, which is one of Loren's favorite desserts. Delicious. All the same, while I was racewalking today, it felt so great and I knew that it was worth it to keep my indulgences (like today) to a minimum so that I can stay fast :). Crazy, huh? But a good kind of crazy.

I got Loren the Wii Fit Plus for his big present. He's actually excited to use it. We tried out some of the games and they're really fun. I like the balance games (favorites were snowboarding and ski jumping), though I clearly need practice to excel at them. I tried the step aerobics, and while it was fun, it was too easy for me - barely got me breathing. Hopefully after I do it a while it will get harder Regardless, it was quite entertaining.

Oh, almost forgot...was going to mention last night, too. Our church moved to a much nicer building - we were meeting in a dingy basement (for 9 years!) but outgrew it and started renting a beautiful chapel at Rowland Hall St. Mark elementary school. It has a STEINWAY grand piano, and a PIPE ORGAN. I swear I'm in heaven!!! Our first service there was last night, and I played both the organ and piano. It was beautiful. I haven't had so much fun with music in a long time. It probably helped that I got to accompany a very good trombonist who attends our church; he played Ralph Vaughan Williams' Greensleeves. Plus I enjoyed the postlude on the organ: JS Bach's In Dulci Jubilo. Awesome.

Feels like there is so much more to tell. I know I'm missing a lot but I need to get some sleep, so will post a pic or two with this and head off for some shuteye. I will be working on more photos and a movie of the day, but that will take a while, so hang on!

Update: Pictures posting too slowly for some reason. Need sleep. Will try tomorrow, sorry!