Pokagen

The Veldhof family spent a couple days in Pokagen State Park in Indiana. We had a fun time riding on the toboggan, going out to eat, swimming, sitting in the hot tub, playing around-the-world-ping-pong, and hiking.

When Erin and I were in Rio de Janeiro more than a year ago I stepped on some sort of Sea Urchin while swimming in the ocean. This particular little devel inserted about 40 little black prickers into my feet. It felt like a bee sting. I was able to remove most of them right away. However, 4 or 5 stayed lodged in my feet for weeks and would hurt whenever I put pressure on them as they would poke into the flesh of my foot. After a couple of weeks I dug all but one out and that remaining one has been bothering me for 13 months now. It is in a section of my foot that I can't reach easily and the little pricker got burried under a thick calus. So this weekend I took advantage of the fact that Erin's sister Gwen and her husband Rob are aspiring doctors. Rob did surgery on my foot in the hotel room to try to remove the pest. Lindsay, Erin, and Gwen also lent helping hands.

Unfortunately, Rob couldn't see it even after digging through the calus, so the little devil is still at large. I'm hoping by removing the calus the pricker will find its way out.

Merry Christmas

Another Christmas has come and gone. It seems weird as Christmas ends to think of the two months of constant build-up and then all of the sudden its done. But none-the-less, it is a fantastic time of year. Here is a little recap of some of this year's Christmas activities:

Arcade DDR. I am now hooked on the newest version: DDR Super Nova

A not-so-subtle hint from my dad that Carissa needs to start saving her money.

Funniest moment of the break: My mom is notorious for mis-pronouncing words, like when she refers to hip-hop music as "hop-hop" music, or when she called the paparazzi the "Comarazzi." This year, while talking about the upcoming Thailand trip Erin and I are planning she very blatantly (and loudly) enunciated the two syllables of the the city Bangkok.

Perry the Penguin was the hit gift. He sings and dances to "Have Yourself a Merry Christmas" when prompted.

Erin's ridiculous purse :)

The first fondue Christmas dinner at the Veldhofs. Mom Veldhof dug out her own fondue set. It was a wedding present that she used for the first time. Saving all this time paid off!

The Elenbaas band for our annual Christmas carol sing-along. The band is now significantly bigger than the choir.

The Elenbaas Gang

It was an awesome Elenbaas family Christmas weekend. Since some of us Elenbaas kids moved out and got married we've been having Christmas back home a weekend early for the last couple years. This allows us to spend a good couple days together and as expected we've already developed some great traditions.

Friday night: Watching the PCA basketball game. Derek did very well and PCA won big.
Making my favorite Christmas cookies. Frosting my favorite Christmas cookies. Eating lots of my favorite Christmas cookies.
Watching old Christmas TV specials (from the mid 80's). Seeing the old ads are great too.

Saturday: Deliver angel tree gifts, go out to lunch at Coney Island, go to a movie, home made steak dinner, and opening Christmas gifts.

Sunday: Church in Dearborn, dinner at home, and finally stocking presents.

Thanks mom and dad for a great weekend.

Hola Mexico!

One of the benefits of my somewhat new floor at Spectrum is girls who like to travel (which obviously includes me!) So sometime in the summer probably at about 3:32 am some of us decided that we needed to go to Mexico to get some sun when the snow started to fall. When I told Randy of our plan and he said that it would never happen we became even more determined to go. So after weeks upon weeks of looking through hotels and waiting for the perfect deal we chose the Riu Caribe in Cancun, Mexico.









We left from Detroit Nov. 30 and were welcomed with clouds in Cancun. It was warm, in the 80's every day, which was nice but we didn't get as much sun as we hoped. One of our "requirements" for our hotel was a swim up bar and we NOT EVEN ONCE used it at the hotel. Oh well, our vacation was warm relaxing and the hours of sun or somewhat sun were glorious! Some of the highlights of our trip were kayaking, shopping, laying by the pool and getting hassled by the entertainment staff, playing tennis, and getting asked and dancing on stage at the "hottest" club in Cancun.

Do your research

I usually try to hit at least 1 landmark whenever I do a 10 mile run in a major city. While in Phoenix I decided to run to Camelback Mountain and then to the top for a good city view. Two locals mentioned "Camelback" was just 2 miles north of my hotel, and then east. Perfect, so I started running and came to Camelback road 2 miles later. As I turned east I thought to myself, that "mountain" looks pretty far away. Nearly 5 miles later I was still several miles away and had to ditch my efforts if I wanted to make it back to the hotel. In summary:

1. Do your research before starting a long run, that's what the internet is for, and
2. Mountains are further than they appear
This is as close as I got:

Later in the week I watched as Suns game in US Airways Arena
and then hooked up with an old friend that I worked with about 5 years ago. He's now a manager at Dan Majerle's Sports Bar in downtown Phoenix.