Live95 Concert and Christmas as Mr & Mrs Kuhn

Kris: Sigh.....here we are again trying to do a quick catchup.   As some of you have noticed, I've spent some time ending my previous personal blog and transitioning to this one (yes....that would be my excuse :-P) Mark: I'll buy that for a dollar. ;)

Kris: One resolution.....keep up to date on the blog!  I really want to write more often....believe it or not

Dec 17th, Mark won us tickets to go see the Live95 Concert. Mark: Actually I didn't really win them, it was more of a plea to the Moon and Staci show who interviewed us earlier in the year about the wedding contest. I sent an email thanking them for their help even though we came in second place and asked for help as Kris had been trying VERY hard to win tickets and I still did not have a wedding present for her. Moon got back to me and set up a time when they called me and helped me surprise Kris with the tickets live on the radio.

Kris: General admission so we got there super early to stand in line outside and freeze but we ended up standing against the stage.  AWESOME!  It was also our first time playing with our new Sony Bloggie Touch camera.  Check out the video we put together: 

The next night was our first time going to an infamous Holiday theme party by our friends Kolby and Jessy.   This year's party was title the "Holiday Hoedown".  

That guy is actually passed out...

Tons of fun, white elephant gifts, a few too many drinks and dancing to karaoke.   A super fun party and we can't wait to see what next year's theme will be. Mark: Whatever it is count me IN!! I have not been at a fun party like this in years. Thanks Kolby and Jessy!

Kris: Mark and I also volunteered again with Home for Life at the annual Mall of America fundraiser on Sunday the 19th.   I was looking forward to having Lisa bring Olive for me to hang out with but was absolutely crushed to learn the Wednesday before she passed away from a nasty infection that lead to organ failure.  It was a very common infection for cats of her type, I won't go into details but it took her within a day.  She was 11 years old so she had a longer life that usual for a cat like her with an incontinence problem but it still came as a huge shock to learn she was gone and I'd never get to see her again.  Later this month (January) we will go to the HFL facility so I can choose another kitty in need of a a sponsor to transfer to. Mark: During the fundraiser at the MOA, I got to handle Shane, an absolutely beautiful doberman that reminds me so much of my own Journey. Some day I hope to be able to sponsor a dog at HFL as well and Shane might just my first choice.

Miss you sweet girl!

Kris: We also did gift wrapping for donations to HFL again at Barnes and Noble Galleria and in just two nights made $222 so that was very exciting. Mark: As part of our time donated and the money we raised for HFL, WACSO has agreed to draw a new picture of our dog Roscoe who passed away early in December. When the picture is completed, we will post it and talk a little more about Roscoe's passing. Here is a previous picture that he drew of Roscoe:

Christmas
Kris: Christmas shopping was a bit stressful as the weather around here sucked and we were crunched to get it all done in just a few short evenings but we pulled it off.   Really felt like Christmas was shortened for us since the wedding kept us occupied until the middle of December. Mark: I have to agree with Kris, Christmas really didn't feel like Christmas, or at least the days leading up to the holiday I was not in the spirit. Hopefully next year will be better as we will just be celebrating an anniversary not planning a destination wedding.

Kris: Christmas parties were fun though. Mark: We ran into Kate, a former co-worker of mine who every year throws an amazing Christmas party with her husband and she extended us an invitation. We had so much fun, great food, drinks and Microsoft Kinect with Dance Central. We have decided that we "NEED" a Kinect someday. ;)

Kris: We spent Christmas Eve at my sister's for my side of the family:

Playing on the Wii with the nieces:

And Lily playing Silent Night on the infamous Bontempi:

Then Christmas Day was over with Mark's family:



Running:  

Kris: My boss gave me an awesome "bonus" for Christmas by allowing me to go buy my pair of Newton shoes and then I managed to win a pair of Newton's from a Team Ortho contest so now Mark and I both have our first pair :) Mark: I am SO Excited to try out our new shoes! The entire second half of 2010 I have been working hard on modifying my running style knowing that I would need to switch to a mid-sole strike with the Newtons. Now, if only the weather would cooperate.

Kris: Unfortunately for me though the leg/knee is still not back to normal.  It's getting really hard on me mentally as the recovery is taking much longer than I expected.  I'm going to try as many short runs as I can but this was supposed to be THE year to start pushing hard for our run paces and look forward to qualifying for Boston.   But I wake up with a sore spot by my knee and a hot spot in my glutes and I feel like freaking out.   And get pissed.....that's my luck right?   I just hate talking about running right now because I can't do it.   Friggin' f-ing depressing.....  So I'll continue with short runs in the new shoes, group fitness classes and some time spinning.

Mark: I am supposed to be running the Securian Half Marathon at the end of January, a race that holds special meaning to me as it was my first half marathon. My original plan was to use it as a good tempo/tune up race, an opportunity to stretch my legs a bit. Unfortunately my friend Steve who is also running asked me if I would pace him, he wants to break 2 hours and set a new PR for himself. I have mixed emotions about this, I am always willing to help anyone who asks but at the same time I have no had a chance to run for myself in a long time. I have agreed to help Steve so I just need to look ahead to the 50K that we are running in April.

Geocaching:

Kris: We've been doing a lot of deep snow caching lately and got a funny picture of Mark after being attacked by a pine tree.   I submitted it to Cache Advance for their "Fan of the Week" and it was chosen as the winner so his photo is their profile photo for a week now :)



Mark: Along with our daily #Geocache365 obsession there was a push on my part to get a few extra caches by the end of the year making our #Geocache365 find on December 31st my 1500th cache find and then we found 3 more caches after that one so that I ended up finding 600 caches in 2010.

Christmas Eve

Kris: Well the day started with a white awakening.   Overnight we got about 6 inches of snow.  Here's a pictures of my front patio showing the snow depth.

Since we knew the snow would slow our driving a bit we scurried out the door and up to Mark's to take care of the dogs.  Here's him shoveling our way up the front steps.

We got the dogs outside and fed, then Mark and I had to get busy with food prep for both today at my family's house and tomorrow's at his family's Christmas.  He made deviled eggs...

I worked on a cream cheese dip

And we put up most of the Christmas decorations at my house since the dogs like to eat them.  But Mark showed me today that he has this cute little "tree in a bubble" on his side table that they seem to leave alone.

Mark: I just got this out the day before, I saw it when I was getting the wrapping paper out and decided I was going to have at least one Christmas decoration out.

So we got to my parent's house in time to make the popovers for brunch/lunch.  After lunch we cracked open a fantastic red wine my sister, Deb, brought.   Here is her showing off glass #1

Mid-afternoon is started to snow again.  It was the big, fluffy flakes.  Between that and the pine trees full of snow, I felt it was a great opportunity for a picture out on the deck.  Thought it turned out pretty well but my hair was soaked by time we got back inside.   Still worth it :)

Mark: I like this picture! Merry Christmas!

Got a few pictures in front of the tree.   The only way to get Onyx the cat to sit still was to drag his climber into the living room. 

Midday we had a conference call with Mark's Dad and his brother Michael and sister-in-law Cari.  Mark's Dad is down in Arizona so they open gifts via conference line and/or video conferencing.  I get to go shopping!  Got a couple great gift cards from his Dad :)

Before dinner, Mark and I ran out to see this house in Waconia that has a huge light display every year.  It's put to music and he even has his own website and radio station.   I'll try to get some video up on YouTube but here is the link to his website:  http://www.waconiachristmas.com/.

Mark: This was amazing! I was a little speechless. We took a viedo of the light show and will post later.

When dinner finally came around we were already stuffed to the gills.  But after a big slice of lasagna and garlic toast we had to put an end to all eating for the night.   So we vegged in the living room and started opening presents.   I'll spare the lists of everything we got but we both got some great stuff and were interrupted by Santa Claus! He stopped by for a visit and even gave Deb a kiss on the cheek!

 

(it was Mom and Dad's friend Ron so Mrs Claus need not be worried :)

So we finished up gifts around 8:00 or so, sat around chatting for a bit and then we needed to hit the road to get back to our "kids".   Mark ended up dropping me off at my house while he ran up to the dogs and then is currently on his way back down to me.   It made more sense for me to stay at home so I could get tomorrow's dessert baked and cooled and also divert a crisis from work.   Long story short, a customer that has an event coming up on Saturday was having registration issues and people weren't getting charged the right amount.  Luckily it's super easy for me to get into the system remotely so I helped him identify the problem (which was actually someone else in his organization making changes in the account that he didn't know about)

While waiting for Mark to come back, I was bringing out some garbage and recycling and realized the snow is at "snowball stage" now.  The fluff has turned to slightly sticky so I made myself a quick snowman.  Probably only like 8" tall

Mark: This was really cute, I missed it the first time and had to have it pointed out to me.

And here I sit typing the blog to finish the night.  We will likely report back again after tomorrow's Christmas with Mark's family.   Really hoping the next round of snow that is expected doesn't completely mess up driving.

Merry Christmas!!