Thanksgiving Snow

I have never had snow on Thanksgiving (at least, not that I am aware of) and it really got us into the holiday spirit. And it made me really want to go and get my Christmas tree (more on that in another post).

Bass Pro and Santa

We decided to visit Santa pretty early this year to try to beat the crowds. Hayden is at the age where his patience is short. I love Christmastime at the Bass Pro Shop because they decorate the store, have a ton of activities for the kids and of course crafts.

blurry, but they have a mini merry-go-round

Testing out the chairs

In line to see Santa...I was surprised the reindeer didn't freak them out...it's mouth moves.

Go Big Orange!

Never thought I would ever really say that....

Kyle and I finally made it to a Tennessee football game. We went to the last home game against Vanderbilt. It happened to be pretty cold that night and we had MANY layers on to stay warm.

The experience was nothing like an A&M game. It wasn't necessarily bad or anything, just different. For my Aggie friends, you know the annoying "uncover nazis" at the game? Imagine that type of annoying and add in TTU fan antics and I think that might be what the student section was like that night. No one was really mean, but it wasn't the "Old Army" experience we are used to at games. It was also hard for Kyle to really enjoy the game since it wasn't A&M. I love Tennessee, but it is still weird at times to root for anyone but an A&M team. But I love college football, so I was happy just watching the game. It was also pretty amazing to be inside Neyland Stadium with a seating capacity of over 100,000.

The game wasn't going to great for Tennessee so we left in the 3rd quarter. I am not sure if I will ever get used to any band other than the Aggie Band at halftime, but I do love singing "Rocky Top"!

Power "T" before the game for the football team to run through

Experiencing South Korea

Well...sort of. Our department sponsors the NEST (Next Generation Sports Talent) program and offers a Sports Studies certificate to those from South Korea that come to Knoxville and participate. This year (August through February) we have 14 participants and all are former elite athletes or former Olympians from South Korea.

It is actually pretty amazing to be in a room full of Olympians! While they are here, they learn English and about sports and exercise science in the United States. Each week the NEST participants attended a seminar through exercise science and one through sport management. One week, Lizzy (another PhD student in Sport Mgmt with me) and I did a presentation on the pressures of college athletics in the United States. I focused on academic pressures and Lizzy talked about pressures on the field/court since she played college volleyball. My international sport history class also got involved last fall. We were paired up with one of the South Koreans in order to learn a little more about their culture and for them to learn about ours.

Yeji was a professional swimmer for 4 years in South Korea. One Friday, we went to a local Korean restaurant and I tried Korean food for the first time. I was surprised to find most of it very yummy. However, I did learn that the entree I ordered should be ordered with the "hot stone bowl" next time. The dish was wonderful, but cold. The meat, veggies, everything was cold. If you get it in the hot stone bowl it is hot.

Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch

We loved the corn maze last year so we decided to return to the same place. Because of football schedules (you know us!) and some other things going on, we didn't make it to the corn maze and pumpkin patch until the weekend immediately after Halloween. We did make an attempt another weekend but the line to get in was probably at 2+ hour wait. No way!

He wasn't too sure about the slide...

She loves to navigate...and must have her map.

Yeah...they didn't really want to take pictures that day...