It’s hard to believe it is almost December and the ‘holiday season’ is upon us. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my parent’s house will 22 of our closest family members. The evening was filled with good food, good wine, good laughs and good conversations. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays!

Normally I am not itchin’ to start preparing for Christmas, but this year we were both feeling in the spirit. When we got home on Friday night, we kicked off the holiday season with watching Christmas Vacation, listening to Christmas music and decorating. Our decorations are still measly, but I know that we will add more throughout the years. On Saturday we continued our holiday cheerfulness. We headed to Hallmark for our newly created tradition of picking out one special ornament for that year (the ornaments are so expensive we can only afford one at a time. This was also a family tradition of mine growing up). With our new ornaments we picked up our Christmas tree and decorated it with lights and our ten ornaments. The living room now has a wonderful holiday aroma.

Well, it’s back in the boot for me. Last night during the second minute of my soccer game I tripped and rolled my right foot/ankle. I hobbled off the field to rest my foot. Normally I walk it off and it feels better in a few minutes, as was the case this time. I didn’t feel any pain while playing soccer so I figured I was good. But after I stepped off the field, my foot/ankle began to hurt and the pain got worse. Once I rested my foot it was painful to walk, and by the time I got home, I couldn’t put any weight on it. So my crutches and boot were resurrected from the closet. Today, I was able to move around with my boot without the assistance of crutches. My foot/ankle is still swollen and has some cool bruising on it and the pain is controlled by a little bit of ibuprofen. It looks like I will be taking a break from soccer for awhile

I am someone who loves to play soccer for fun with a little bit of competativeness. For people like me, there are recreational soccer leagues in both indoor and outdoor soccer. I have mainly played in recreational leagues for a majority of my soccer games (although I have played competative and intermediate leagues). But lately, the recreational leagues don’t feel recreational anymore. There are some more competative teams playing in recreational leagues.

During my women’s games, we have lost some games up to 10-0 even with an additional player (an additional player is added after the losing team is down by 5). What makes me frustrated about this, is that some teams still go hard core even when they are up by so much. Whenever I have played soccer when my team has been up by a number of points, we tone it down and take into consideration that this is a recreational league. It is not fun to play when you are down 10-0 with an additional player and are still struggling. It doesn’t seem so fair, and lacks the fun I am looking for when I play soccer.

So with my frustration, I contacted my indoor league about having the referees and management step in to ensure games are more recreational. The league was very receptive to my feedback and they plan to start working on things. I am hoping that they will take some action so games can continue being fun and truly recreational.

Adam and I are booked for Boston from April 17th-22nd to visit Ben, Liz, Rebecca, and to enjoy the sights of Boston. We are so excited! Is it April yet!?!

So the diagnosis is in for Ginger…Cushing’s Disease. Cushing’s is a disease in which the body produces an excess amount of cortisone. It’s is not uncommon among dogs, and Beagles as well so the vet was not surprised by the test results. For now, Ginger will start some medication for a few days that will shrink her adrenal glands. Once we check her blood after the first course of treatment, we will see if the treatment is effective. Hopefully medication can do the trick.

Halloween was pretty uneventful around here. We didn’t dress up and barely decorated. We did, however, carve pumpkins and gave out candy on Halloween night. With friends in town for the Duck game vs USC, we got to dog sit for them as we watched the game with some friends. We ate pizza, drank beer, ate the most delicious and creative cup cakes ever while watching the Ducks crush the Trojans. Throughout the night we had 38 trick-or-treaters as the event went on, and we even ran out of candy. I guess I need to plan better for next year.