Festivus

A tradition was started in the year 2006 when we celebrated our first Festivus among family and friends, at my house. This year there was more food than ever! We couldn't even begin to make a dent. We followed the traditional Festivus rules this year which included the unadorned Festivus pole, the airing of grievances, and the feats of strength.


In the feat of strength the head of the household must wrestle everyone til they lose. Mike wrestled Jim, Wes, Katy Mac, and he thumb wrestled Watkins. I wrestled Kate and Katy Mac. I think we both lost to Katy Mac.







The Festivus pole, is neither beautiful, nor festive. In Festivus' origin which I date back to Frank Costanza on Seinfeld, Frank finds tinsel distracting, thus the unadorned pole.

Happy BDAY CARRIE!

For my cousin Carrie's 25th birthday, her mom (my aunt) Lisa decided to throw her one HELL of a party! The theme was island tiki and the cake was bright pink with a flamingo! It was great. The whole family and all of Carrie's friends turned out for great food, great fun and great WINE!
You only turn 25 once!

Lisa and Carrie looked super sexy!


















Everyone came out in their Hawaiian finest!

Simon and Owen and Santa

We took Simon and Owen to get their picture made with Santa, and as you can see, they loved it!

Christmas Parade (year 4)

This year was Kate and my 4th annual appearance in the Christmas Parade. We started out by getting awesome matching outfits to go under our boxes. We also had some pretty jammin' hats that I got at Earth to Old City. Kate came over to my place, as usual and we got to work wrapping our boxes and sampling some fine whiskey that Kate brought. The wrapping paper and boxes looked better than ever. I went crazy this year and got wrapping paper with a print...WHOA! It wound up looking the best.


This year when we got down to the parade we scouted out the scene, as usual. We walked all the way to the end of the line where Santa was but we weren't really getting a good vibe from that end of the parade, plus Cotton Eyed Joes was asking us to carry their banner, and we were like, eh not so much.




We finally found a spot next to the Farragut High school marching band. We started out behind them but moved our way up to the front. We got between them, and the habitat for HUmanity float and eventually they both kep spacing away from us because each thought we were with the other. This worked out perfectly because then we had our own spot.

While we were marching along a man came up to Kate and we thought for sure he was coming to kick us out. We he wasn't. He was with the newspaper and wanted to know our names for the newspaper article! Kate told him our names and he wanted to know who we were with. She thought for a second and then spit out, "THE HUMANE SOCIETY?" To which he interpreted as habitat for humanity, probably because that is the float we were behind. Anyway, this was the best parade ever, and we are getting really good at this! News paper photo below

Best Legs Contest

About a week before Thanksgiving, Kate was driving down Kingston pike when she saw a sign on the marquis of the Palace saying that they were having a best legs contest.

Well, she called me right away and told me to enter, which of course, I did.


We invited many friends who came to support my cause and I dressed up in my sexy school girl outfit...








AND WON!!!

FIRST PLACE!!!!

AHHH! Hottes legs baby!!!

Simon November Update

Simon is the cutest he has ever been in his life, which is saying a lot because he was already quite cute. He is soooo close to walking this month. He can pretty much do it, but is still just choosing not to. He can cruise really fast. Also, he is eating everything, thank goodness! He loves spagetti, vegetables and most fruits. Put a cupcake in front of him, he's not interested, but give him a green bell pepper, he will eat it. What a weirdo!
My favorite think Simon is doing lately, is signing "more". The sign looks like he is clapping his hands but let me tell you he definitely knows what it means and if he really likes something he has eaten he will tell you "more! more! more!" It is great!
Simon isn't quite talking besides mama and dada.
His main skill is organization. He spends hours organizing blocks, shoes, etc.
This weekend he is getting his picture made with Santa and Owen in Chattanooga!

Happy Bday Kate!

This past weekend was Kate's official birthday weekend. A small gaggle of us went out for some thai food to start the celebration but the real party began when we met up with the whole flock at Charlie Peppers later on. The Miller Lite Crew came out to celebrate Kate's birthday too! They brought tons of crap and I got at least one of each, my favorites being my new Miller Lite hat and armband.









She got a lot of cool gifts like: an awesome tshirt and garden gnome doormat (that'd be me), a bunch of flamingo Christmas ornaments (Holly), a bunch of beer and wine (that'd be mom and Lisa), and a bunch of other cool stuff but I think her favorite had to be her cool new camera (Spencer).


We all went down to Chattanooga Saturday and the whole fam came over for Kate's bday and bbq. Dad got Kate a really great cake!

Cousins get to play

This past Saturday we headed down to Chatt-town for a little family bonding. Mom made a HUGE spread of food (that I did not stop eating all day, oh and the cornbread was my favorite). Dad had the game on the radio, since for some reason it wasn't on TV. Andy and Allison came and brought Owen and Kate drove down and eventually Spencer. Mike had to stay in Knoxville and work the shuttle train.

Kate and I also spent a good deal of time trying to teach Simon to walk, using wheat thins as bait. He can stand, he can cruise, and I am pretty sure that if he felt like it he could walk, he just chooses not to. Anyways, our little trick didn't work.

Boot Camp Month One, Over!

I officially survived my first month of Boot camp! That means, for exactly one month I dragged myself out of bed, drove 20 minutes across town and did a lot of exercise at 5:45 am. That's big-time, so obviously we needed to celebrate. We had a little graduation party at Tai restaurant.
My food came in a pineapple! How special is that?!

After my delicious pineapple dinner, and sharing 3 tequila shots with the boot camp girls, and a couple of glasses of wine, three of us hotties made out way out to Cotton Eyed Joes to start the real celebration. Cow roping and bull-riding were involved but mostly dancing for me. After a few long sweaty hours at the Joe, we headed out to go home. When we got outside we remembered that we actually didn't drive there, we took a cab, so we were temporarily stuck. Luckily we befriended a limo driver whose client was in the Joe, indefinitely. Through my powers of persuasion I convinced him to let us come play in this birthday girl's limo. Then I convinced him to let us drink her beer. Then, the four of us girls convinced him to drive us to waffle house.

It was a most excellent time!

Halloween was so much fun!

Halloween started for me at 5:45 am this year. I went to bootcamp and worked my butt off, IN COSTUME! I was a football player that morning, and all of the instructors dressed up like Richard Simmons.

During the day Mike, Simon and I went to pick out pumpkins. Simon wasn't really that interested in the pumpkins but we were really interested in how cute he looked amongst them.


Later in the day on Halloween I headed down to the Runner's Market for the track club's Wednesday Night HALLOWEEN run! Great fun!

I dressed Mike up like a Leprechaun! He loved it, and was so excited about his costume....NOT! HHAHAHAHAHAAHA

After a long fun day I think we were a pretty crazy looking family...but wouldn't you expect that?

Oh, and Simon was more interested in a banana than any of the candy.

South Carolina Tailgate

Simon got to come tailgate for the South Carolina game! He got to play on dad's train, SO COOL!

October update . . .

The newest thing in my life this month, is Boot camp. Yes, Boot camp. I have been getting up at 4:45 am every weekday morning and dragging my sleepy ass to Lakeshore park, only to have it kicked by 5 perky skinny girls demanding I perform push-ups, sit-ups etc. Oh, and I have to write down everything I eat in this little red book and turn it in every morning for one of these gals to read. Sounds horrible doesn't it? Actually I love it! I am obsessed and I feel great and so strong. My new goal is to become one of the instructors and put others through what I have been through this month.

OK let me back track a bit. Oct. 1st I went to the Bengals game in Cincinatti with Queen Holly. I had a most excellent time and I have decided that NFL football is as much fun (if not moreso) than college. I loved it! The Bengals do happen to be the absolute worst team in the NFL right now but I don't care. I am a fan for life.


That next week or so we hit the Skybox again for the Georgia game. Mr. Claussen invited us to come along and we had a GREAT time up there. Plus, the Schoenbergers were in town so they kept Simon! Mike and I got to hang out ALL night it was so much fun. I love sitting in the Skybox now. I took my own whiskey and people just kept bringing me diet cokes to mix it in, what a grand situation.



My mom came and spent the night with me one night while Mike was out of town and we had a great time and she brought Simon a MONKEY SUIT! WHOOHOO



The first session of my competitive swim clinic at Ft. Sanders West concluded this month and I got a picture on the last day of all of the cute kiddies.


Oh, we had our first swim meet this month. Farragut vs. Science Hill. We got our butts absolutely handed to us. Yeah, they whipped us. I have some opinions regarding why this happened and if you ask I will tell you later. Here Boogie and I are, looking defeated:

Also, we took all 50 kids on a big bus up to Johnson city and on the way back we stopped at McDonalds and this kid made a huge hamburger, look:



One beautiful thing about October, is Brewers Jam. A day of beer drinking, and, well, that is all you do. Simon spent the night in Chattanooga with his grandparents while Mike and I sampled every beer in sight. It was a most excellent time!


Mike has been doing the Pumpkin trains this month with his job and Simon got to go with him all day one day. He even got to ride on the golf cart.


OK, as the new social chair of the Knoxville track club, it is my duty to attend certain social events, such as, the Halloween Pub RUN!!!! See if you can spot me...


Those are the most interesting things about October so far. This update dedicated to Kristin Luna, who also contributed to the wonderfulness of October by visiting Knoxville.

Simon drives

I let Simon drive today!

Tailgate 2

Chiefed by Wes Bennett, Amazing food Cheffed by Holly Hambright, parking space and generator provided by Boogie, golf cart, badminton and flair by Cheryl and Mike, Heine-keg by Megan and Rachael, tequila in a water-bottle by Kate, and beer by everyone. This weeks tailgate was the best we have ever done it. It was twice as good as tailgate 1, and will only be exceeded by tailgate 3. We are getting good at tailgating. I can only credit our practice at Buffett shows for our preparedness at the UT tailgate.

Cornhole will be provided by the Captain (Eli) and apparently we have commandeered some bean bags thanks to Wes for Georgia game.

All, in all it was a great tailgate!