24 and 25

coach chrissie was nice enough to have a special edition of core on wednesday morning...all other workouts were cancelled for the day...but the 12 days of core were on in full force...it was a fun workout...hard as usual but a lot of fun...i love that more than half of the group did not have to be a work or school but we all got up for the workout and then headed to magnolia for breakfast...mmm blue berry whole wheat pancakes...and lots and lots of coffee...

after breakfast i headed over to barton springs and watched the swimmers, chatted with my mom and sister in law said hi to meredith and soaked in the sun...met up with chuck for a 6 ish mile run...it was really nice to run with chuck...it's been a really long time since we ran together...i love spending time with friends doing the stuff you love...

had a mellow rest of the day enjoying the warm weather and the sun...it has been a really long time since the sun has been out...and it is amazing how much my mood is affected by that...anyway we dug through the wood pile and found lots of good scrap wood for building shelves and other stuff for the studio...

there is a tradition in my family of a super delicious snack spread on christmas eve...usually pretty late like 11pm...with lots of good wine...and then we open presents from each other...doing "santa" gifts on christmas morning...so in keeping with this tradition...j and i had our spread of snacks...but made that our dinner...yum...watched a movie and called it a night...

woke up in the morning and called my fam in the burgh to say happy christmas...they had been up for hours already and were eating breakfast...guess that is what having little guys is all about...i totally remember my parents giving us a time that we could get out of bed...but we would have been awake most of the night just waiting and waiting...j was still asleep...

i went to barton springs...where i met up with logan....for a nice mile swim...it was great...a really nice way to start out a really nice day...IM training had me swimming at the springs in the dark so this was my first day light swim there in a long time...it is so beautiful and clear...and the fish are getting really big...i loved it...

home to eat cinnamon rolls (thanks betsy!) drink more coffee and open gifts from my folks and my brother and sister in law...yeah....thanks guys...j and i listened to charlie brown christmas ate too many sweets and thought about what songs to get with our itunes gift card...

i hopped on the bike trainer for an hour and j played out in the yard...we just relaxed and had a nice mellow day...our neighborhood was nice and quiet...i caught up on my fitness magazines...

in the afternoon we had what has become a tradition on chirstmas day...smoked salmon and scotch...j and i had christmas one year with my folks out in AZ...after we had gotten back from a nice hike in the late morning we sat on the back patio with salmon and scotch...yeah it's really a great tradition...so j and i kept that one up :)

later i cooked a yummy meal...taddies and neeps with sauteed onions and chanterlles, wild alaskan salmon or fillet of organic beef crusted with rosemary, garlic and crushed black pepper, and an arugula salad with cucumber, radish, onion and avocado...it was great...

watched rescue dawn...it was a great christmas...