Christmas 2009

Christmas Eve Day

Well, before we knew it... it was that time of year again.

The gift giving, meal eating, family greeting, cold weather beating, after trick or treating... time of year.

We strung the house lights and put up our "mini" tree. A few decorations here and there with some added protection for the cactus out front.

Ho Ho Ho:

I had to work on Christmas Eve until 4:00 which gave Micki plenty of time to use her kitchen to the fullest extent of her magnificent culinary powers. By the time I got home, she had three pies cooling of on the counter and three Cornish game hens browning perfectly in the oven.

Why three pies you may ask. Simply because three of us were eating and we all had a different request. Logan went for pecan, Micki for pumpkin and I had my usual desert mandate... chocolate.

Pie-fecta:

Chicken domination:

Dinner is served:

Was kind of like having our own mini-turkey to ourselves besides they tasted different than turkey due to the fact they were actually chickens. To top it off, Micki had actually baked a loaf of cornbread from scratch the night before. From that she made a bunch of pieces and combined it with a few other ingredients to create corn bread stuffing. Mashed red potatoes filled the rest of the plate and the three of us sat down for the meal.

After we ate it was "one present per person" time. Since we were on our way to the Phoenix Zoo Lights in a few minutes, I chose a big fuzzy hat for Micki to open. Logan got a pair of warm gloves and I received a black T-shirt. Any black T-shirt with graphics was the top item on my Christmas wish list... so I was off to a brilliant start.

We headed over to the Zoo. Wasn't as busy as expected and we were able to park in the main lot. According to the literature, there are 2.5 million individual lights strung in just about every tree on the property. It takes a 4 person crew 12 weeks, or 2,000 man hours to set it all up. They start in mid-August and don't finish until the first week of November. Take that Clark Griswold.

On to the photos....

"Big Blue" has over 50,000 lights alone:

Komodo dragon:

Lots of pink:

Lots of green:

Red and white at night:

Peacock:

Uhmmm.... maybe an ogre:

Bad ass uber evil rabbit:

1984 called, they want their Stay Puft marshmallow man back:

I have no idea why the Stay Puft guy was there, nor the ogre for that matter. I think the organizers just ran out of ideas or maybe got those items at a discounted rate. Or perhaps the Zoo has a few more bad ass exhibits that we should check out during the day time. I'd love to see the marshmallow man lumbering around in his native environment.

Most of the actual animals were away in their own dark, warm places. The Komodo Dragon could be seen under it's heat lamp. One of the elephants as well was hanging out. At least three different people walked through the crowd claiming they couldn't see it. Amazing... it was as big as a UPS truck yet people were missing it until it was actually pointed out to them. I am thinking humanities predatory instincts may be in worse trouble than I actually realized. There was a playful otter however swimming in his little pond. Actually ate a fish some 3 feet away from us. That was cool.

One section of the Zoo has a tree concert. Basically a bunch of trees with a ton of lights set to music. Lasts about 3 minutes but fun to watch regardless.

Here is about 50 seconds of the show:

Zoo Lights from Elvota on Vimeo.

From there we decided to ditch the cold and head home before Santa came. We all had some of our respective pies and watched a little bit of the Christmas Classic James Bond film "Casino Royal". Man does the new Bond kick some serious ass!

Christmas Day

Yipee!! The time to open presents was finally here. But first Micki was preparing yet another glorious meal. First off was quiche. Now this isn't just some ordinary run of the mill pre-Humprhey's Peak hike quiche. No sir! I am talking full throttle cheese and egg super thick yet fluffy Micki quiche fresh from the oven.

Bomb-tastic:

While we ate the wrapping paper flew. Lottery tickets were found, mini-multi tools were discovered, even more wonderful black T-shirts exposed, the technologically advanced bino-cam was unboxed. All happened so quickly that not even a single photo was taken. Well, one of us did pose for a pic with their new gift.

Just what I really wanted:

After the dust had settled I took a few moments to mount the new XT crankset I had received on the Salsa. Micki and I donned anything that was Christmas new and wearable and went out for a quickish afternoon ride on Trail 100. Parked at Tatum, up to 40th street and off to Trail 8. Then Cholla to Ruby Ridge and winding our way back down fence-line. My new cranks really polish of the Golden Ghost.

I am now XT super-powered:

Oh the wonderment:

Shame really... now I don't even have to try on the hill climbs any more. It's like I just got a new set of pistons pumping pure pomegranate Rockstar for every pedal stroke. I can sense the singletrack starting to recoil in fear already.

Fixed gear training plus XT crank equipped?  Awwwwwh SNAP!!!

We had planned to hit my Mom's house for desert and gift exchange at around 7:00. I decided to ride my new found fixed joy over there and Micki and Logan would drive to meet me. That bike sure is fun. I think it's about 20 miles there as I go a little longer to stay on the bike path most of the way. The ride itself was mostly uneventful besides two beach cruiser cyclists using the entire path heading towards me at one point. It was dusk and they weren't paying much attention until about 40 yards away when I yelled out "HELLOOOO!!". With a quick unskilled jerk at the wheel, the offending cruiserette wobbled out of my path just in time. Which is a good thing... because I still really haven't figured out how to stop that thing yet.

At Mom's we all discussed our current jobs, TV shows and opened another round of presents. I lucked out with yet another black T-shirt and Micki got some perfectly matched kitchen towels as well as a multi tier cooling rack in preparation for Cookie-Palozza 2010. Logan got close to winning several thousand dollars with some scratch tickets. In fact he came away with $7.00 which was "better than a kick in the pants" according to my Mom. Very true. Very true indeed.

So... that was about it. We had a nice day for sure. Was good to see family and we may get a chance to head to Nebraska next year to see what a white Christmas really looks like. That will be a new one, at least for me.