This holiday season, Kris and I have pretty much made no plans. No, that's not quite right, we've made some plans. In particular, we've planned NOT to travel for the holidays. This is a big break from my family's usual plans of gathering for Thanksgiving, which typically leaves Christmas open for Kris' family gatherings in December. However, with all of my travel this year, and finances being as iffy as they are, we've decided not to join the mass migration to other parts of the country.

Besides, how would Kris be able to play World of Warcraft from his mother's computer? I mean, really?

So, when Megan let us invite ourselves, er, invited us over for Thanksgiving, we jumped at the chance. I enjoy big family gatherings, and the Smith family qualifies for both big and family. Besides, the new house needed proper family christening, and what fun would that be?

LOTS!

Since we were heading over hill and over dale to the Smiths' house, and hills crush Kris' car's gas milage, I drove us up to the house. When I arrived, I noticed that the parking pad next to the house was empty. After checking that the other easy parking spots were full, I circled back around to part on the parking pad. That was when Kris spoke up.

"You're not going to part here, are you?"

"Yeh, I was planning on it."

"Can't we park back up there?"

"No. Look, there are four parking spots here. Dinner is in like an hour, we're probably the last people here. I'll just park here. Besides, Megan said they put in an extra spot."

"Why aren't you parking on the side?"

"Because the tenant parks on the left."

"Eh?"

Take that, gravity!

Megan later confirmed that EVERYONE avoided parking on the new parking pad, so I had better have parked there! I made sure Kris heard her, complete with a confirmation that he had.

So, you know that Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin is just walking along in one panel, and in the next there's this blur with a tail on one side? Yeah, the one where both Calvin and Hobbes are in a heap in the third panel? Yes, that one.

That was us, when we approached the front door of the house. Together, Kris and I were Calvin. The part of Hobbes was played by Kevin, who came rushing us from the side of the house and tackled the two of us, to much merriment and greetings.

The tackle just set the tone for the whole evening, which was marvellously spectacular. I managed another bear hug from Matty, and lots of chatting with Kevin, and Mark, and Mark's parents, and Megan's parents, and TWO grandmothers (which is crazy! Mirabelle and Meter have a good chance at long lives). I wanted to help Megan out with the dinner, but, well, she was done.

The meal, holy moly, I swear must have taken Megan all day plus two, even though she denies it. She made the entire meal a Smitten Kitchen recipe meal (which could have ended disastrously when SK's monthly bandwidth quota was exceeded this morning and everyone was locked out of the site, except that Megan is resourceful and used the Google cache to retrieve the recipe details she was missing), which meant it was completely Kris friendly.

Think lobster, and you're close to how wonderful the meal was.

The house is looking fabulous. I really like the design choices they've made with the house. I need to ask about the flooring. Thinking of putting it in at the Indiana house.

So, when people ask us what we're thankful for, I'll say with no hesitation that having friends like the Smiths is one of the biggest blessings in our lives and we're incredibly happy for their presence in our lives. I'm glad I don't need a big holiday to know or remember this.

This morning's velocity had all of the characters from Monday with one switch, we swapped out Jennifer for a quick Asian dude I've seen at various classes. Oh, and I learned the name of the guy whose name I couldn't remember on Monday. It's Greg, not David. I have no idea where David came from. Maybe Pickett.

As we were all rolling away on the foam rollers or with the roller sticks, a beefy guy I'd never seen before came up in full Velocity gear. "Are you here to workout?" Sandie asked him. "No," he replied, "I'm here to watch." Huh?

Turns out, he was the sports something or other director, and at class today to watch Breanne. Presumably to watch us, too. When I know someone is around to watch, I know my behaviour alters. I tried to detect changes in Breanne's behavious, since this was the first time this director person was around to watch.

During the warm ups, Breanne asked me about my knees, how were they doing? They're good, no acute injuries there. The next run down, how was the achilles? Good there, too. A little while later, how about the hamstrings, are they okay, too? Yep, those are good. Didn't have the heart to tell her about my quad. Instead, I chuckled and said, "I just need to stay healthy for another two weeks. That's my goal, to attend the Speed Camp in two weeks. Body, get me there!

The Asian guy behind me laughed and said, "Yeah, my goal was to make it the whole year without another major surgery. I have four weeks left. I might make it!"

I laughed, but Darlynn on my other side exasperated, "I can't believe you are talking about it like this!"

Sister, I thought, when you've been perpetually injured for the last four years, joking about it isn't going to jinx you.

Warmups were fine. Though I intellectually didn't really want to race Darlynn, emotionally I did, because I raced her. I have to see if she'd be willing to head out to do a speed workout with me. I know she has kids, but she's nearly exactly my pace. I rarely beat her by more than maybe a step. I think we'd make good running partners. Well, sprinting partners.

Not that warmups are races. Not at all.

Today's workout was three rounds of

20 rotating ball slams
20 pass-throughs
20 sliding thrusts
6 50m runs

The rotating ball slams were done with a wide stance. Turning to one side, we slammed the D balls down, as we dropped into a lunge and tried to catch the ball on its short bounce. Not enough slam meant the D ball didn't bounce high enough to catch. The trick on these, aside from slamming hard enough, is to actually dip into a lunge with bent legs. Tipping over from the waist with straight legs pretty much defeated the purpose of this exercise.

The pass-throughs were brutal.

Two jump boxes were set about 16" apart. Placing a hand on either box, starting in plank position, we did a pushup. A deep pushup. A pushup so deep we glared into the depths of the box gap and dreamed of pushing hard enough to see the light of day again. When we reached the apex of the pushup, back into a plank position, we then thrust from our feet, keeping our hands on the boxes and picking our feet up, rotating from the shoulders until our feet were out in front of us.

Hey, look! Dip position! Do a dip. Lower. Looower. Looooooooowwwweeeeeeeeer. Now come back up.

From the sitting position, we then pushed off, jumped a little bit, thrust our feet back out behind us until we were back in the plank position. That counted as two. Do twenty.

The sliding thrusts were so much easier compared to everything else before it. With hands out, in a plank position with our feet on towels on the linoleum surface, we brought our knees to our chest, sliding our feet up so that we were curled into a ball. We then thrust our legs back out to return to a plank position. That's one. Do twenty.

The six lengths were easy. I had a good strong stride again. I think I'll go for a run tomorrow, see how long I can keep my knees up high enough for a good run.

We all finished early enough, though I was completely unable to do the pass throughs and ended up doing 20 pushups and 20 dips with the boxes instead, so Breanne continued with abs.

In particular, we had four rounds of:

40 sliding mountain climbers
n weighted V ups

The sliding mountain climbers were done with our feet on towels, sliding again on the linoleum, as quickly as we could. Meanwhile, our partner was doing as many V ups with a weighted ball as possible. I think Bill, my partner, managed 4. I managed 5 during his rounds.

The final round was 10 pike position slides while our partner did situps, followed by one legged pike position slides. Kris finished up and was next to me, heckling me while I did my pike position slides with little effort.

"First the bear crawls, now the pike position slides! Unfair! You're bioengineered for these exercises!"

If only engineering were involved, I could tweak for longer legs.

You know, watching someone do something day after day after day for years and years does not make you an expert on doing that thing yourself. Not that I would have said it would if you had asked me.

Now, if I had asked ME, I have to wonder if my answer would have been different.

I hope it would be.

Mike dropped Rossi off Sunday night for the Thanksgiving holiday. The family is heading off to the east coast (good thing I'm posting this so far after the fact that not only is he back from the trip, but TWO holidays have passed since this trip) for Thanksgiving and he found out just yesterday that the doggie day-care he normally goes to won't accept Roz any longer because she requires shots.

Requires shots?

Uh...

Roz is confortable enough at our house that she fits in with our routine. She has a few quirks, but nothing that would become aggravating in under a week, so we agreed to watch her over the holiday for Mike and Kate. She's here, and look, I have insulin to give her in the morning and the evening.

Now, I watched my dad or my brother give my brother insulin shots for years, over a decade. I know to roll the bottle to mix the insulin. I know to tip the bottle upside down and draw the syringe slowly so as to not introduce air. I recall now to inject the same amount of air into the bottle before removing the insulin. I know to snap the syringe to dislodge any air bubbles, and I certainly know to remove said air bubbles before injecting the insulin.

Knowing all of this and actually DOING all of this are two (mostly) different things.

Good thing Rossi is more patient than my brother was when he was her age. I'd be in a heap of hurting if she weren't.

Kris and I went to Velocity this morning. I haven't been in over a week and a half. I think Kris went maybe twice last week, one of his absenses being completely my fault. Not that he wasn't happy to return to bed and sleep for another hour or so.

This morning there were 7 paying customers for a full house of people warming up. Aside from the usual suspects of Breanne, Sandie, Kris, Bill and me, we also had Darlynn, who is becoming a regular, Jennifer, whom I met just today, Joe, Kris' coworker who is good natured about my unsubtle hecking and a 7:30 regular whose name I've forgotten - maybe David?

After jumping jacks and armcircles and squat warmups, I was tempted to line up so that I was warming up in Jennifer's line. She reminded me of a high school softball or volleyball player, the way she carried herself, and I was tempted to race her in the warmups.

For about 2 seconds.

They're warmups for a reason, to warm up, not to go all out and pull a muscle so that you're out for the offseason and out for the Speed Camp coming up that you really, really want to go to.

Besides, I warm up slowly, usually taking about 30% longer than everyone else to complete the length of the track in my warmups, and prefer to be in the last line so that I don't block anyone else behind me on the warmups. Since Jennifer lined up in the second lane, my racing morning was over.

Sorta.

Today's workout was:

10 runs 50m
10 reps push press
10 reps overhead squats

8 runs 50m
15 reps push press
15 reps overhead squats

6 runs 50m
20 reps push press
20 reps overhead squats

4 runs 50m
25 reps push press
25 reps overhead squats

The runs were done on the track, running down and back.

The push presses and the overhead squats were done with the same weight, for me the beginner barbell. We practiced with dowel rods before actually starting the workout, to make sure we had good form.

Because I was sharing a bar with Darlynn, I opted to run after my push presses and squats. So, while she and the rest of the group ran their ten lengths, I was pushing and squating by myself in front of Breanne.

Can you say "one-on-one training?"

Can you say "requires perfect form?"

Yeah.

Fortunately, my squat form was pretty good ("That's the best I've seen this morning, Kitt!"), so I was only self-conscious, not self-conscious and squating poorly. The trick to good squats, I've recently realized, is to keep your heels on the ground. Tipping forward is a lot harder when your heels are firmly planted on the ground. ("Good form, Kitt! You're getting stronger. Good depth. Good squat!")

I managed the first two rounds without difficulty, but was running out of time before Darlynn returned on the third set. I cut the push presses short, doing only 10 in the 20 round, and doing two sets of 10 for the squats instead of one set of 20. I did make up the missing 10 push presses in the last round, though.

Since I was running last in each round, I was usually running by myself. Except for one point in the eight lengths running, I ran my lengths very strong. I kept my knees up, my stride long, and my starts quick. My knees were tweaking funny when I jogged, but running was fine, so I kept up the pace.

My last round of four lengths happened to coincide with Kris' running of four lengths, as he was out for a good 10 minutes in the early rounds. I was about 15 meters down the track on my first length when he started his first length, and managed to stay in front of him the whole time. I have to say that today was the strongest I've run at Velocity, with that ending proving that I stayed strong. "Just couldn't catch you," Kris muttered under his breath as he walked by me back to his bar.

Yep, much more satisfying than racing Jennifer.

I finished up my missing pushpresses and put the bar back, just in time for the three rounds of two sets each of 20 crunches on swiss balls. I managed two sets (so 80 crunches) in the time it took everyone else to do the three sets, so I stopped.

Though slower through the exercises than everyone else, I was actually very happy with how I did in this morning's workout.

Kris and I managed to sleep most of the night through last night, with Kris' waking to the smell of Andy's coffee and my waking to the thud of an excited Blue landing on top of me, bringing the tent down in the process.

Nothing like using a sixty pound dog as wake up call.

That same dog makes a great escort in the middle of the night when there might be coyotes and other large animals roaming around, and you're not sure if it's safe to walk around the small building, across a small open space to the other side of the hilltop, in order to pee.

Andy thinks that Blue didn't actually sleep last night, that he maintained watch the whole night. I know that Annie wriggled her way out of the tent in order to sit watch for a while. She did, however, recognize the warmth of the tent, and wormed her way back into the tent, sitting on Kris' head in the process.

This morning, I was, unsurprisingly, the last person up, with Bella being the last of the seven of us actually getting up.

After breakfast, a meal that Bella thought meant, "We're going home!" but really meant, we're heading off for another hike. Having climbed to the top of the hill he'd been wanting to climb, and discovering another hill beyond it, he decided he wanted to climb THAT hill to see if there was another hill beyond it.

Interestingly enough, I think all of the dogs have decided that I am the source of all that is good. That is to say, food.

So, off we went on our hike, pretty much following the same trail that Kris and Andy (and Blue and Shadow and Annie and mostly Bella) took yesterday. The six of us (where the six of us were the seven of us minus Bella, who was, once again, on her own hike again) went out the back way, down the hill, up the next one, and along the ridge. Up and over a couple hills, to the top of one hill, to discover the next range of hills after that range.

For the way back, we decided not to go back the same way we came up, and opted instead to hike back "towards the water tower." We found a copse of pine trees, though how they survived, much less grew so big, on the top of the hill with little water, I have no idea.

Bella kept up with us, following her own path, sometimes being ahead of us, sometimes being behind us, but always walk walk walking at her own pace.

At one point, I stopped to squat, and Bella passed me, to catch up with Kris and Andy. Kris decided to wait for me, Andy decided to continue. At that point, we lost Andy. He went off either down toward a large ravine or down towards a dropoff of unknown height. We decided to try to the left, towards the large ravine.

After a few hundred meters, Kris was less confident about the direction we were going, so decided to turn around. Bella was in front of us when we made this decision, being the only dog with us. I hurried up to her, turned her around, and hustled her back the way we had come.

We had walked just far enough for Bella to disappear over the hill we were scrambling up when we heard Andy call out to us, why were we walking back the wrong way? Eh?

We called for Bella to come back, but, being on her own hike, she just kept going. We turned back back around, headed back to the ravine, scrambled up and around around the ravine, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Must to my pleasant surprise, Bella figured out our mistake, had turned around, and was coming back our way. She didn't seem too pleased about our mistake, deciding not to greet us when she caught up to use, and just walked right by.

Much like yesterday, according to Kris.

We wandered down to the bottom of Crews Hill, walked up Crews Road to the top of the hill, and gathered up our stuff. The dogs were sufficiently tired out to sleep all the way back home.

I'm happy to say when we made it home, I was able to stop by a Starbucks and buy a hot chocolate. A premium hot chocolate.

One I'd been talking about for the previous day, to Andy's consternation, I think.