Basketball, Christmas Party, and Santa... Oh My!

Kyle plays basketball in a league that is associated with his work. He's played in the league for as long as we've known each other, I think. Sometimes his games are on Friday evenings and sometimes they are on Saturday mornings. This week his game was at 9:00 Saturday morning. Peyton happened to wake up while Kyle was getting ready to leave for the game, so we decided to go watch his game.

Look at Kyle's mad ball handling skillz!

And he goes up for the lay-up!

Look at that fine free-throw shooting technique!

These guys are not really the greatest basketball players, but I think they try their best. And Kyle has fun doing it, so that's all that matters. Kyle scored 5 points, which may not seem like a lot but that was about 25% of his team's total. He even got a technical foul, which was pretty funny because it was called on a misunderstanding. I think the referee got into his head! Peyton had a good time watching the game and cheering for Kyle. He'd yell, "Go, go Daddy!" He would also clap when they scored. Unfortunately that wasn't too often and Kyle's team lost the game.

After the game we went home and had lunch and put Peyton down for a nap. We had Kyle's company's Christmas party to go that evening. I took a nap too! When I went to get dressed for the party (30 minutes before we had to leave) I realized that I didn't have any dress shoes that fit me. I wear them so infrequently that I didn't know my feet grew! I had to run to the store really quick to buy a new pair of shoes. Then when I got home, I also realized that none of my dressy shirts fit me either. I didn't expect that at all because all of my regular clothes still fit me fine. Luckily I had purchased a few maternity items a couple of weeks ago and had a shirt that was dressy enough to wear to the party. The crisis was averted.

We took Peyton to my parents' house so that he could spend the night with them. Then we headed downtown to check into the hotel. Kyle's company (ACES) got everyone that wanted one a room for the night so that no one had to drive home after the party. There are about 10 people that work for his company out in Denver and they paid for all of the employees and their spouses to fly out here for the weekend to attend the party. This bad economy means nothing to ACES!

The party was at Ruth's Chris. ACES arranged for shuttle service to take everyone from the hotel to the restaurant. The party began with happy hour and hors d'oeuvres. They had crab balls, shrimp, and crab stuff mushrooms to eat. After happy hour, the sit-down dinner began. The first course was a choice of either seared tuna or shrimp cocktail. I didn't eat either because I don't like shrimp and didn't think I should be eating semi-raw seafood right now. The next course was salad. They chose the field greens salad, which was ok, but last year they offered a Cesar salad, which was better. For the main course, you could choose from either fillet mignon, salmon, or a NY strip. We got the fillet mignon (of course!) We both like our steaks well done. The past two times we've been there, the steaks have been cooked perfectly. This time though, the outsides were so burnt that the steaks were a little crunchy. I also got a lobster tail with my steak, but it was so tough that I couldn't even cut it with the steak knife, so I didn't each much of that. What a disappointment. The sides were sauteed mushrooms (yuck), broccoli that was barely cooked (I like raw broccoli, but not for a side dish), and a baked potato (which they didn't give out any butter or sour cream for until like 20 minutes after the food was served). Dessert was the chocolate sin cake, which is so rich and impossible to finish. Overall, I was disappointed with the food.

We still had a really good time at the party though. Kyle was drinking Jack and Coke all night and "was feeling pretty good," as he said several times. The people that Kyle works with are very friendly, fun, and easy to talk to.

Here's Kyle and I at the party.

And this is Kyle and his BFF Karl.

ACES spared no expense for the party. They raffled off 10 gifts to the employees. The prizes included a PS3, a Wii, a netbook, a GPS, an iPod Touch, and iPod Nano, a fancy coffeemaker, and other expensive stuff that I can't remember right now. Each employee that didn't win got $50 in gift cards to various stores. And, they're buying each employee an L. L. Bean coat with the company logo on it.

We shuttled back to the hotel and I passed out from exhaustion. I can only imagine how tired I would have been had I not taken the nap. We got to sleep in on Sunday morning, which was nice.

When we got home Sunday afternoon, I turned right around and headed out to Arundel Mills. Kim, Bo, and Dougie were going to visit Santa in the Bass Pro Shop there. They invited Peyton to come along too. Since they live very close to my parents, they picked Peyton up from there and brought him with them. I got there before they did and got into the line that was really long. Even after they got there, we ended waiting almost 45 more minutes until we finally reached Santa. Peyton was pretty grumpy because he was woken up at 6:30 that morning which is super early, and he hadn't taken a nap yet. It was 1:30 and he usually lays down at 12:00. When it was finally our turn to see Santa Peyton didn't want to have anything to do with it. I know it was just because he was tired though. Dougie sat on his lap and gave him his list. Then we were getting ready to leave the store and I had Peyton's coat on and everything when he decided that he wanted to see Santa after all. Kim asked the guy taking the pictures if Peyton could go up there again, and he agreed. Peyton sat on Santa's lap and we got this picture.

We didn't get home until about 2:30. Peyton fought us when we laid him down for his nap, but eventually fell asleep. Kyle woke him up at 4:00 so that he would still go to bed at normal time, and he was not happy about that. He came downstairs and fell asleep on the living room floor. Eventually, he woke up and was back to his cheerful self. We made some peanut butter cookies together that evening.

It was a super busy, but very fun, weekend.