It's the most wonderful time of the year!

 

Christmas 2025 was wonderful and full of good times with family!  We packed in a lot of fun and as I enter the new year, I am tired but have a full grateful heart!

Dave and I started the Christmas fun with getting a tree and decorating the house.  Well, I decorated the house, but Dave did help with the tree and getting the decorations down from the attic!

We got into the Christmas spirit by going to the Dock Street to see the Christmas Carol.  This was preceded by a fun dinner at Blind Tiger to enjoy their Christmas decorations.  

Another night we tried to see the CofC lights, but only were able to see one of the many JOY signs in Charleston!

We reached the week of Christmas and my mom came down Dec. 23.  Mom, Camden and I went downtown to see the American Gardens and she was able to try the best Reuben at Tommy Condon's!

You can't go downtown Charleston at Christmas without going to Charleston Place!

American Gardens

Christmas Eve was when we got more family in town!  Dave's parents came down and we all went to Poogan's Porch for lunch, walked around downtown and went to Charleston Place again!

Nathan got home that afternoon and we all were able to go to the Christmas Eve service at Charleston Baptist and exchange presents that evening.

ChatGPT made our church picture more impressive!

The boys got college rivalry PJ's this year!

Dave's parents had to leave after Christmas Eve celebrations, but we still had mom and Nathan with us for Christmas day.  We got to sleep in, eat breakfast and then open presents.  After a walk on the greenway, we had lunch and enjoyed hanging out until Nathan had to leave for Columbia.

The day after Christmas was get everything ready for a shrimp fry with my sister's family coming in from Memphis.  They arrived and added 6 more people to our house.  It was crowded, but fun.  Lots of laughs, games and towel washing!  We also went downtown, shopped on King Street, looked at Charleston Place, got coffee and dessert, and checked out American Gardens.  

On Sunday we headed to Columbia for the Storeys to see Nathan and exchange our last presents.  We had fun hanging out and having family time at Grammie's house.

Monday was our mountain day!  We hiked to the top of Looking Glass Rock.  It was a hard hike for most of us, but we took it slow and made it to the top.  The view was exceptional!

After getting home late Monday night and working on Tuesday, we had one last family fun day on New Year's Eve.  We went to see the Angel Oak on John's Island (Camden has never been and this seemed a good adventure for us!) and had lunch at Freshfield's on Kiawah.  

Camden left us for hanging out with his friends, so we watched a movie and then waited for the ball to drop!  Dave did need to be woken up at midnight to see it!  

It had been an awesome Christmas season!  Time with family is the best present of all!  Now to start a new year!     

  

 

 

What else is in Kansas

 

Kansas has never been on my bucket list of places to visit, but as I am discovering about all the states I am running in, every state has something to see.  In Kansas, there was lots of grass!  One area of grass is designated as a national preserve.  It is called the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.  And it is featured on the National Park Kansas Quarter.  It is set aside as a remnant of the vanishing prairie.  One part of the trail had grasshoppers jumping in front of me as I walked and it reminded me of the grasshoppers in the Little House on the Prairie books.  And there was some grass that was as tall a me.  But it was brown this time of year and looked dry.    

The visitor center was closed due to the government shutdown

The one room schoolhouse on the prairie

I visited the tallgrass on Thursday, the day I arrived in Kansas.  I landed in Wichita and was able to get a great hamburger and even better fries at a local (at least it looked local) hamburger joint named Spangles.  

The Wichita Airport is called the air capital of the world because of how many airplanes have been built in Kansas.

I got to drive a red Kia in Kansas

I had been to Braum's before in Oklahoma and their milkshakes are great!

The race was in Salina and their downtown was super cute!  They had artwork throughout the town in the form of sculptures and murals.  And they had a really good pizza place for a pre-run dinner and a good Mexican restaurant for a post-race dinner.

I found another giraffe

A hummingbird

After the race on Saturday, I had the option of driving an an hour to see the largest ball of twine or an hour to see the Oz Museum.  Oz won out!  It was a small museum in downtown Wamego.  There was not much there other than that, but it was an interesting museum.  And they had lots of Toto's in town!  

The yellow brick road was not a yellow as the one in Boone at the land of Oz.

One of the Totos

 

I stopped at the Eisenhower Presidential Library on the way back to Salina, but it was closed due to the shutdown too.

One last stop on the way out of Salina on Sunday morning was a donut shop.  I was able to buy the last lemon filled donut!  I also bought a blueberry cake donut that was good to have on the plane ride home since I didn't have time to stop for food at one connection!  

That is my trip to Kansas.  Not a lot of overwhelming sights, but some good food and a good race and one more state crossed off my list.  I am officially done with all states that start with the letter K!