In the past few months I’ve been lucky enough to become the owner of two books on baseball. The first one, “The Code: Baseball’s Unwritten Rules and its Ignore at your own risk Code of Conduct“, was written by a guy with contacts in the Twins organization because many of the quotes about baseball’s code came straight from current & former players as well as coaches. Chris bought it for me in order to complete his “free” shipping minimum on Amazon.com. Yes, it probably would have been cheaper to just pay for the shipping - but this way I got a book out of the deal!

The book was all about the player’s code. The quotes from players and coaches were interesting because they would explain how that particular person interpreted the (unwritten) code. Older players talking about younger players, pitchers talking about their teammates, etc. Generally, I think the book probably could have been 100 fewer pages because there was a lot of redundancy…but overall it was fun to read. Even the umpires got involved to talk about how they’re supposed to call teams who are pitching at each other which the umps KNOW is part of the code being played out and it isn’t fair if the other team doesn’t get to retaliate!

The second, “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Heart-Pounding, Jaw-Dropping, and Gut-Wrenching Moments from Minnesota Twins History“, arrived in my stocking on Christmas morning. I hadn’t heard of this book before but it was pretty fun to read. The author divided up the chapters by certain highlights and low lights of the Twins history. It was written after the completion of the 2006 season so it was relatively current too! The book covered the careers of the obvious famous past players as well as some that I had never heard of.

Did you know that a pitcher who gave up at least one run without getting any outs has an ERA of infinity!?!? There’s a Twins player stuck with that for…infinity. I’d say I learned a lot from reading the book and I finished it in just under a week so - it was good! It definitely gives me baseball fever - only 4 months to go until opening day & it’s FREEZING outside today! I think it’s going to be a long 4 months.

If anyone is interested in reading one of these, let me know. I’d be happy to share!

On Christmas Eve we were joined by my parents, josh, robyn, aunt julie, gma b, tia and nate for a fun evening. We had a taco bar for dinner which turned out to be a little bit hectic when everyone was arriving shortly before we planned on serving dinner but I think overall it turned out a-okay. Everyone had a place to sit down and I think all the food was hot at one time!

After dinner some of us decided to rock out a bit with Wii Guitar Hero. Including…

Yes…BOTH of my parents!

Once everyone was done rockin’ a couple serious games of Dr. Mario were played and some nice conversations occurred (especially about the wedding!) before the responsible people left for the night and the rest of us irresponsible hooligans got into some craziness. Irresponsible may not be the right word, but lets just say at least a couple people woke up drunk and one person didn’t even make it to Christmas! Ah, yes…fun times.

What started out as a plan to play Cranium never worked out. Instead we played Ride the Bus followed by Moose…both of which I haven’t played since 2001, if even then!

Thankfully, Christmas day was a little more low key. Chris & I headed up to my parents house for lunch followed by a nap, opening some presents and watching A Christmas Story. After dinner we drove out to Andy’s place where we played Tales of the Arabian Nights board game at which Andy kicked our royal butts.

Besides missing my sister & her husband, I’d say it was a pretty fun couple of days!

Yep - that’s right, this morning on my way to work I filled up my gas tank for $1.52/gallon. Less than $16 for the 10 gallons I needed. Crazy.

It wasn’t too long ago that I was asking if anyone remembered the last time gas was $1.50…do you think we’ll make it down that low in Minnesota? The map at this link shows gas as low as $1.32 in parts of the country! Here’s the current image as of 10:00AM:

Looks like a road trip to Missouri, Arkansas or Texas wouldn’t be a bad idea to escape the cold Minnesota weather!

Ok…honestly, who starts a weight loss program 5 days before Christmas?! Me, I guess. And because of that stupidity I am starting out in the hole. Oh well - now I have an even bigger challenge!

Chris & I hosted Christmas Eve at our house last week and while we prepared 5 pounds of turkey meat for tacos…only about 2 got eaten. Ugh. Needless to say, we’ve been eating a lot of tacos over the past week and it showed up on the scale. Thankfully, last night as we were laying in bed we both agreed that the wedding “diet” has to start now! I’m excited to have the wedding as a winter inspiration so that I’m already looking & feeling great when spring rolls around.

Current Graph:

It doesn’t look too good right now, but I think in the next 10 days I can drop 4 pounds (especially since a couple are probably water weight) which will put me right back on track. We’ll see I guess!

On Saturday Chris & I went to the Science Museum to see the Mysteries of the Great Lakes Omni movie and the CSI: The Experience special exhibit. Since we became members last year we were able to spend the afternoon there for a total of $7 ($2 to reserve tickets + $5 discounted parking)!

The movie was good & the CSI exhibit was pretty fun! We were assigned Case #2 and the first thing you do is take notes at the crime scene. After 4 1/2 minutes we moved on to different crime lab areas where we reviewed the victims cell phone, matched tire treads, looked for finger prints, etc. Finally we got a report from the medical examiner before placing our report. We’re pretty big fans of CSI and NCIS so there wasn’t a lot for us to learn from the exhibit but we had fun with it anyway!

This year I decided to make cards for my family to open up on Christmas Day. It was a fun project, although Chris got a little annoyed by the noises the cricut makes. Oh well…I think they turned out really cute and they actually didn’t take as long as I thought they would. Here they are!!

Click on the small images if you want to see the full size photo of the individuals.

Click here to see Mrs. Claus.

I realize that December is time for snow but as I go through our Europe pictures I can’t pass up a gorgeous one like this. Just another example of how beautiful southern Germany was when we visited in mid-October.

Original Photo:

Puzzle (click to play):

I wish everyone a happy day no matter what your religious beliefs. This is the mantle at my parents house…we decided last weekend that it was very pretty.

Have a great day!

So, it turns out that I think I like to bake! On Sunday morning I woke up and felt like making some Christmas cookies, so I did. Four types as a matter of fact!!

We went to the grocery store and I started with this:

First things first…haystacks. No bake, no chocolate deliciousness!

Then, what turns out to be everyone’s favorite…peanut butter blossoms:

Third: Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies (Chris’s request):

And finally, Oreo deliciousness (I don’t really know what these are called - Oreo Balls maybe):

I actually made some fudge Tuesday night to join the other sweets but thankfully both Chris & I were able to share some of the cookies with our co-workers Monday & Tuesday so we don’t get stuck with ALL these sweets!

Ok, so Saturday was actually quite eventful. After my Aunt’s birthday, Chris & I were off to a Holiday Sweater party at his friend’s Casey & Amy’s house. The roads were horrible but it was worth it!

We hung out mostly with Tia, Nate, Erik and Andy…ate some yummy food…and had a great time. Photos as proof of the horrible sweaters:

The host, a pretty damn good winter scene, three amazing holiday vests:

Another fun thing about the house (besides the GIGANTIC tree that reached the ceiling) was a nativity that is populated by dinosaurs which apparently Amy loves.

And…two of the three kings:

I think I might have “won” the “best outfit”…mostly because everything I was wearing actually belonged to my mom!! (Thanks Mom!)