Whirlwind

The last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of busyness.  Between Sarge testing for his first Dan black belt, a Christmas party, getting everything ready to travel over Christmas...  Yup, December was a busy month.

Sarge tested for his first Dan ranking.  This was the breaking portion of the test.  

First were the boards.  A rising elbow and a downward chop.

Second were the bricks.  He broke four with his forearm and then, for his *second break,* 5 with a downward palm strike.

Yeah, he rocks =)

The day after his test, his unit had their family Christmas party.  He had to show up with black eyes and bruises.  But he still looked really good in his dress blues.

The next week was spent getting everything ready to head up to my parents' house for Christmas.  Had to make sure we had everything a family of 6 needs to travel, plus Christmas presents.  

After dropping the mutt off with my in- laws, we finished the drive to WI.  It was long, but thankfully the roads were clear and there was no bad weather.

A couple days before we got there, my parents got 15" of snow.  There was definitely plenty of snow for us to play =)

  

 

  

 I even managed to get out and run in the snow.  Four miles of soul satisfying snow and quiet =) 

We had Christmas brunch with Grand Papa Bill...

The kids were entertained by watching the deer running across the tennis courts in the background.

We made the traditional sweet cream cut out cookies.

And after a few fun packed days, we headed back to OK to spend some time with my in- laws.

And saw that we had left snowy WI to come to snowy OK.  But that didn't stop us from climbing to the peak of our mountain.

Gorgeous views out across the valley...

I did manage to finish Squish's cross stitch.  Only took me 5 years.  Wonder how long Sweet Pea's will take...

It's been a busy few weeks, but I completely enjoyed all of them.  I'm looking forward to everything that 2013 has to offer us =)