Christmas Week Images

It's Christmas Eve which somehow feels weird to me... pretty much always has since I've been an adult... given that my strongest memories of Christmas are being a kid with my family in Ohio with snow on the ground. Now *I* am the mom (after 3 years this still feels weird to me!) which I guess puts me in charge of making the memories for Moana... Right now I am consoling myself with the fact that she is only three so she won't really remember this one, right? Lol. One of these years I won't get to use that excuse and I suppose I'll have to put more effort into Christmas.

Anyway, I am ahead of the game at the moment, primarily b/c I stayed up until ~11PM (late for me!) wrapping presents last night and I am hoping that Moana somehow ignores the fact that Santa is bringing presents wrapped in the same wrapping paper she saw in our closet last week. Coincidence, right?!? In the coming years I'm going to have to be way more sneaky and sly about all this b/c Moana is one freakin' smart cookie. She will be stoked tomorrow though... she definitely understands more about Christmas this year and anticipation for Santa's arrival is high. I'm sure it will be super fun for us all.

Part of the reason I finished the wrapping task last night was so I could go out on a bike ride guilt-free this morning... turns out it is yet another wet windy day here on the island (Wind advisory! Yikes!) so it was pretty much a mess out there today but I made the best of it. I managed to stay upright and kept air in my tires which is about all it takes these days to make me declare 'decent ride' in my post-workout notes.







Isn't this a cool banyan tree?

So here are some other images from the week around here. I didn't take this one but found it on FB (taken today)... this is a beach ~9 miles from my house (I run here on my longer runs) and you can see the rain storm off shore. Most of the time when I say I'm riding through rain it's just short little squalls like this that pass fairly quickly (ie as fast as the wind is blowing, which today would have been ~30mph).

All this weird weather has left lots of crap on our roads which is wreaking havoc on my ability to keep air in my tires while riding my bike. Exhibit A from last weekend...

Exhibit B from Wednesday... Check out that big ass nail. It jammed itself right into my rim and I'm actually going to have to replace the rim tape after that one. In good news, with all this recent practice (3 in 3 weeks), I am *awesome* at changing flats now. I'm hoping Santa brings me some new tubes and CO2 cartridges, but even if he doesn't, I stopped by the bike shop yesterday to stock up so at the going rate I'm good for at least another 5 weeks.

Don't feel too sorry for me though... on the ride my goal was just to get here...

You'd think that since I live in Hawaii I would make a point to do this more often... but I was sitting there on the beach on Wednesday trying to remember the last time I just hung out on the beach and listened to the ocean?? It's been a while. Too long, really. I think in 2012 Training Peaks should figure out how to let us work in their software program off-line... in which case I would get a laptop and make this my office. Now THAT is a New Years Resolution worth making!

Anyway, it was really nice to just hang out and relax for once... every once in a while I caught a glimpse of my hot husband riding a wave... nice for him to have some time off work this week too and play in the surf where he grew up.

So all in all it's a cruisy relaxing week of holiday fun over here on Oahu. We won tickets to Sea Life Park and I think Moana may be as excited to go see the dolphin show next week as she is for Santa's visit tomorrow...

Merry Christmas to you all!!