Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas with family this year. The holiday is always too short, but we packed in as much as we could.
Here is a picture of us in front of Mom & Dad's tree in Amarillo on Christmas Eve.

Here's my mom and dad opening presents that morning before we headed to Plainview to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Mom just opened her Nook...and I got one too! I am super excited!

Here is a cute picture of me with Mom and Avery.

Here we are in front of the stockings at MeeMee & PaPa's house. The stockings are a sight to see...all 17 of them that MeeMee made. I should have taken a picture of the stockings all by themselves.

Here is Bryan with one of his favorite gifts...an Auburn sweatshirt. He is looking forward to wearing it when they play for the national championship on January 8th. We had a wonderful trip. The best part was definitely spending time with family and catching up. We have so much to be thankful for and are truly blessed to have such wonderful families. Bryan was able to spend a couple of days in Nashville right before Christmas, and that was wonderful, too.

But, it is always nice to come home and see Adi, too! She was so happy to see me when I picked her up at the kennel, and was even more excited when Bryan came home from practice. I love how her ears perk up and her tail wags when she hears him open the garage door. She knows just what it means and she runs to the door to wait for him to come in...it's too cute!

I am so thankful that we have this week off too. My to-do list is really long, but I'm making progress. Dentist appointments, cleaning & re-organizing, GoodWill donations to deliver. But don't worry...I'm going to sneak in a little after-Christmas shopping as well as the mani-pedi and massage that Bryan gave me for Christmas!

News!!!

Big News!!! Avery and Christina are engaged! Yep, he popped the question last night. The big blizzard in Minneapolis caused some minor readjustments to the planned date, but made it extra romantic too. Check out the cool cake he had made to look like a ring box. It says "Marry me?" on the corner. Aren't they cute?
In other news, Bryan ran the White Rock Marathon in Dallas last weekend. Yes, that's his 2nd marathon in 5 weeks! His time was about the same as the Abilene race, but he actually felt better about this race. I was very proud of him! Here is a picture of his finisher's medal and his bib. This race is huge! I think there were 7,000 marathoners and 13,000 half-marathoners. You got a different medal depending on your race and a different finisher's T-shirt for each event as well.

And, last weekend Mom & Dad came to visit. They brought us these cool Adirondak chairs for an early Christmas gift. They put them together for us and Mom and I stained them last weekend. This weekend I varnished them. They look pretty good if I do say so myself.

Turkey Trot

Happy Turkey Day everyone! We've had a wonderful Thanksgiving week with Bryan's dad here to visit from Nashville. The weather has been beautiful (until the cold front came through today). The boys played golf twice, we hit the outlet mall, and we even had 2 opportunities to use our fire pit! Look at this awesome fire! The s'mores were delicious!
Thanksgiving morning we got up early to join 40,000 Turkey Trot participants in downtown Dallas. They had a 5K and an 8 mile race, but Bryan and I opted for the 5K. It may be a little boastful to say it, but I ran the whole 3.1 miles! Bryan was so sweet to run with me the whole way even though I really slowed him down. In case you are wondering, 40,000 people is a lot! It took 10 minutes after the official start before we even got to the starting line! Lots of families walking, strollers, people in costumes, and dogs. It was fun, but you definitely want to be at the front of the race if you are planning to run in any kind of competitive way.

Here we are in front of the big inflatable turkey. Yes, those men beside us have long, blonde wigs sewn into their caps. The boys just headed out to the Cowboys game.

In other news, I finally finished graduate school! Yahoo! I defended my professional paper a couple fo weeks ago, and turned in the final corrections the 2nd week of November! My official graduation is not until December, but it is such a relief to be finished.

Bryan has been doing a lot of traveling. He went to Houston for a science convention 2 weeks ago, and was in San Anotonio last weekend for a soccer convention. Before school soccer practice kicks off (pun intended) the Monday after Thanksgiving and their first games will be over Christmas break. I can't believe soccer season is already here!

Abilene Marathon

This weekend we traveled to Abilene for Bryan to run in the Marathoning for Miracles marathon. He did awesome! His official time was just under 4 hours 19 minutes.

Here he is approaching the finish line.

And, here he is crossing the line to receive his medal! I was so proud of him. We had a great weekend visiting with our friends Matt and Andi (and their sweet little boy Ryan). And, we even caught ACU's football win on Saturday afternoon.

Sporting Events

We are a few weeks into the school year, so the Beck's are back into a full array of sporting events. Bryan plays softball and coed soccer, and bowling league was supposed to resume last week. But, apparently the league did not make on our night, so we've declared our team the winner (I'm sure we would have beaten any other teams that would have signed up). We've still been meeting the last couple of weeks as a team for "practice". Wouldn't you know it...we've bowled better than we ever did when it actually counted against another team. Two weeks ago I actually beat Bryan in one game, and last week I bowled a 180 for a game! Yes, I know it will never happen again, but it did once. I have no proof of course because the lights were set in such a way that my camera phone could not capture a good photo of the scoreboard :(

Last Sunday we "competed" in a miniature golf tournament as a fund-raiser for Special Olympics. Our team got 3rd place! We got some nice giftcards and coupons to restaurants...no better prize for the Becks!

And of course, Fall means the Cowboys are playing again. Thank goodness they won last week...it sure would have been grim around our house if they were 0-3 going into the Bye week.

Summer

Well, summer is rapidly coming to a close, and I have not kept up with the blog like I intended. So, here is a run-down of what has been going on "back at the Beck's".

In mid-June, Bryan ran a half-marathon in Estes Park, Colorado. His dad joined him for the trip, and they had a great time. It was surprisingly cold for June. It was cloudy the whole time, and in the mid-40's. They were glad they had coats! And, it rained on race day! Despite the less-than-perfect weather, Bryan did great at his race. His time was a little over 2 hours, which was great considering the rain, cold, hills, and elevation! He is currently training for a full marathon in October.

While they were on their trip, I was home studying for my Comps tests for grad school. Big fun, huh? But, I did pass all of them! I also did a lot of work on may professional paper...the last obstacle to finishing grad school. I will finish it this fall and graduate in December.

In July, we went to Sedona, Arizona with Bill and Lou (Bryan's aunt and uncle). We had a great trip! On the way out, we stopped at Meteor Crater just outside of Flagstaff. I had never heard of it, but about 50,000 years ago, a huge meteor landed here and made the huge crater. They think it was about 700 feet deep at the time and may have had a lake in it. But due to erosion, now it is only about 550 feet deep. It is over 2.5 miles around the crater! Here I am next to a possible piece of the meteor. It looks small, but it weighs more than a car!

Here is a picture of Bryan beside the crater. You kind of lose perspective on how big it is when you are beside it. but, the Statue of Liberty would fit inside and not rise above the rim. Or, by our estimation from our knowledge of the new Cowboy Stadium, the crater is deeper than Cowboy Stadium is tall.

The NASA astronauts that landed on the moon trained here back in the 60's.

Here we are at the Grand Canyon. No picture of the Grand Canyon does it justice, but here are a few of us beside it. Bill had been growing his beard for a while. Bryan decided he needed one to match for the trip!

Bryan and I do not always dress to match...just a coincidence. These were special Life is Good shirts that they made for Sedona.

By the way, the Grand Canyon is about 8 times deeper than Meteor Crater (and not caused by a meteor at all). It is about 10 miles across as the crow flies, but about 200 miles around the rim.

This one was taken back in Sedona on a patio on the Main Street. Sedona is absolutely beautiful! It was also really nice weather. Who knew Arizona had a monsoon season? It rained a little bit almost every day, and although it would get hot in the afternoon, the mornings and evenings were cool.

Here we are on the patio of a restaurant. Nice view, huh?

We took a little excursion one day to Montezuma's Castle. Way back when (late 1300's) an Indian tribe built this "castle" way up on the side of a cliff. They needed ladders to get up there. It was really cool, although I'm not sure I would want to live way up there.

You can't go to Sedona without hiking at least one of the big rocks. This is Bell Rock.

We did not go all the way up, although there were some people who did! But, it was fun to hike around and see all of the red rocks up close. Here I am by a little "stream" of rainwater than ran down the rock.

Here is a good one of Bill and Lou on Bell Rock. Thanks for a great trip Bill and Lou!

Adi stayed in Amarillo with my Mom and Dad while we were on our trip. I think they had a lot of fun!

We have spent a few days the past week or so working at school. I think we both have our rooms ready. And, we spent a couple of days last week in Austin. Bryan had a work conference there, and I tagged along! It was great to see my Uncle Rick and my MeeMee's Cousins Jim and Karen.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

...start your engines. Yes, Bryan and I heard those famous sporting words LIVE yesterday at the Indy 500. And yes, it was "ladies" because there were 4 female drivers. Here is a picture of us in front of the track...look how close people sit. We did not sit here, but we think the big crash at the end (where the car flipped over and hit the net) happened right in this part of the track.
I had never been to any kind of car race before, so I learned a lot. The most amazing thing to me was the size of the track. The race is 500 miles, and the track is 2.5 miles long so the race has 200 laps. The amount of "stuff" inside the track was shocking. Do you see that little white building over our shoulders?

Here we are in front of it. It is a big Indy Car museum. You walk under some little tunnels that go under the track to get to the inside of the track. There is all kinds of stuff inside...this museum, lakes, a 9-hole golf course, tons of parking, and tons of grassy areas where people can hang out and watch the race. In fact, the track is so big that I don't think there is a single seat where you can see the whole track.

Here I am on the "bricks" that made the track famous. The whole track was originally brick. Now, there is just a little strip at the start/finish line made of bricks. But, the strip extends outside the actual track and into the big infield so you can take pictures.

Here is some of the infield parking. You can also see the big tower in the distance. I think some of the spotters for the drivers are up there where they can see the whole track. The "pole" is on the other side of it. It is a big pole that shows where all 33 racers are so the drivers can see their standings as they go by...I don't know how they can really have time to see it though.

Here we are in the infield. This is a road inside that they use for other races throughout the year.

This is a picture from our seats. I took this before the race started...it was waaaaaay more crowded when the race started. Down the track we could see the pole where the race starts/finishes.

And here is the view to the right from our seats. We could see the drivers come out of turn 4 on our right and then pass the pole and go into turn 1 on our left.

Here is Bryan, his Dad, and his sister Janet in our seats.

Remember that big tower I took a picture of from a distance? Here is a closer view of it. The strip of bricks are right here, too.

Here is a shot of the cars being taken out to the starting line. They drag them out with these little carts.

Here is a picture of Bryan and his Dad beside one of the pace cars. Notice I said "one" of the pace cars. You can see there are several. Before the race they have a bunch of college girls (some kind of princess court or something) that get to ride them in a parade. Robin Roberts from Good Morning America got to drive the actual pace car this year. She is only the second female to ever get to drive it.

Here is a picture of Will Power (#12 car) going into the pit. Our seats were right in front of the entrance to the pit. On our way into the race, we saw a merchandise trailer with T-shirts for a driver named Will Power. Of course he became our favorite and we cheered for him the whole time! How can you NOT cheer for someone named Will Power? He started right behind Helio in second place (based on qualifying) and stayed at the top for a while. Unfortunately, he drove off with the gasline still attached on his first pit stop and got black-flagged. This means he had to go back to last place. But, he did a good job of catching up and ended up in 9th place. It was fun to cheer for him though, and it made it easier to keep track of how the race worked when you had someone to watch for.

Here are a couple of pictures during the race. You cannot imagine how hard it was to get pictures of the cars when they were actually racing. Actually, I think I got the picture above when they were in the parade lap at the beginning and weren't at full speed yet.

Here, Will Power is about to pass Sarah Fisher. It took me about 12 laps (attempts) to get a picture of his car. They are driving at 220+ miles per hour. The track is 2.5 miles long, and Bryan was timing them on his watch at about 40 seconds a lap. You could hear them coming and as soon as I saw them coming out of turn 4 I would snap the camera to try to get a picture as they passed in front of us.

We had such a great time at the race! It truly is something that every sports fan should see at least one time in their life. This was the 94th running of the race. From 2009-2011 is called the Centennial Era because it will be 100 years since the track was built during this time frame. Dario Franchitti won his 2nd Indy 500 this year. Helio ran out of gas on the last couple of laps and missed his chance to win his 4th total and 2nd set of back-to-back wins.

Although we did a lot of driving on our trip, we had a good time and got to see some awesome parts of America that we had never seen before. The Lake Euphalla area of Oklahoma was beautiful. And, on Saturday night Bryan's Dad showed us around his hometown of Columbus, Indiana. It was such a beautiful town! And...in Missouri we even went to a full-station gas station where an attendant pumped our gas. Neither Bryan or I could remember ever being at one of those!

Wonderful Weekend

Mom, Dad, Avery, and Christina came to visit this weekend. We had so much fun! On Saturday we toured Cowboy stadium and then went to see the Rangers play the Cubs.
Here we are on the field!

Bryan and I had to get our picture taken on the star!

And, here I am at Keith Brookings locker. He is my favorite defensive player!

Alumni Tournament

This weekend was the ACU Alumni tennis "tournament". We had such a great time. It was so much fun to talk about old times, catch up with what everyone is doing now, and of course...see everyone's cute babies!
Lacy, Kristin, Andi and I had to get a group photo.

Here is Jason with his sweet daughter Thea, David, Andi and me.

I needed a picture with each sweet baby! Here I am with Andi's sweet little boy, Ryan.

Here is Lacy's adorable daughter, Callie. Of course I waited waaaay to long to take this picture with her. I think it was almost nap time so she wasn't too interested in taking a picture.

And here I am with precious little Thea.

I got a copy of Hutton's new CD...can't wait to listen to that!

Bryan and I had so much fun...we can't wait until next year's tournament. Thanks Hutton for such a great event. And, thank you Matt, Andi, and Ryan for hosting us! We had so much fun!