A weekend memories are made of

Where is the time going? It’s like it’s just being sucked away from me! I need more of it!
The weekend flew by too fast, but I have a lot of great memories to keep.

I had some great quality girl time with Melissa going to see Twilight. The movie itself was a bit of a disappointment, as I suppose all movies fashioned after books can be. I’ve got a better Edward in my mind than any actor could play.

Off to holiday and birthday parties, lots of catching up with old friends.

An early and very, very cold Sunday morning! Ran in the Jingle All The Way 10k with Keith along Haines Point.

It was around 30 degrees at the start of the race, with the Reflecting Pool still iced over!

Mike came to support us, and dropped us as close to the start as he could get, which was on Constitution and 23rd (the race started closer to the FDR Memorial). Then he drove around searching for parking.

Did I mention it was cold? Very, very cold waiting for the race to start! We kept trying to move into the center of big groups of people for their warmth!

The race itself was really fun, though. 4,500 people, so there was lots of people watching and distractions. It was crowded, so a lot of bobbing and weaving, and we started the race pretty slow. But in the end (including my just barely jogging the last .5 miles), we finished in 55:34, just about 30 seconds slower than in Quantico! I was floored at that.

Mike and Goldie froze that 55 minutes, but it was great to have them, and a dry sweatshirt, waiting at the end!

Home, breakfast sandwiches and mimosas to celebrate, and then David and another colleague of mine joined us for the Steelers/Ravens game in Baltimore.

The game was a blast, not too cold (or that could have been the beers), and much to our surprise, the Steelers actually pulled out a win!

A warm and sleepy drive back to DC capped off the night.

But can I count Monday as part of the weekend, too? Two more colleagues flew into town and after a long day working and brainstorming, we celebrated the season with a holiday party at BLT Steak. I was lucky enough to be the one to plan the party, and I hope everyone had fun! Most of us are pretty close with all the traveling we do together, but there was a new face or two in the crowd, too.

I set up some games for us to play instead of it just being a dinner where you visited with the people sitting closest to you. The first one was close to a White Elephant game. I purchased 12 prizes, ranging in quality from an iPod shuffle and an espresso machine to hangers and kitchen towels. The prizes were unwrapped but marked with a letter, so everyone could see what they all were.

Then I wrapped up boxes. The only thing inside the boxes was a letter that matched one of the prizes on the table. After everyone randomly picked a number, we followed that order to pick a box, open it, and see what matching prize you got.

Complicated, but a lot of fun! It was great to see what prizes were left, instead of wrapping up items and people not knowing if the Harry Connick, Jr. CD they got was a good prize or a bad prize, because they didn’t know what else was left.

I, of course, went last. I’d just take whatever was left, and I was hoping it was one of the kids toys I bought from a $1 bin at Target.

But life can’t work out that well. And if you can believe it, I ended up with the iPod shuffle! I was mortified. The party planner is NOT supposed to get the best prize!

It looks rigged that way, and there is just no possible way I could have rigged this! It’s another reason why I put the presents out for display and wrapped up boxes with the letters inside – so all the boxes would look alike, and there would be no way for me to track what letters were in what boxes.

The second game I took myself out of the race completely. It was a trivia game, and I had e-mailed everyone to provide a question about their job. Then we’d see how well we all paid attention to each other! Everyone was a great sport and actually sent me questions. And we learned that we needed to start listening to each other in staff meetings just a bit more! Out of 13 questions, our highest score was a 6!

Lots of food and general merriment, generous prizes from the company, and more memories.