Dashing down the road
In my race track Chevy Blazer,
Thinking to myself
Could things get any crazier???

Happy Holidays everyone! Tis the season, right? Well at least around my place it is! I have been caught up in a non-stop whirlwind since Thanksgiving with lots of things going on for the holidays as well as getting things geared up for the 2012 racing season. Did I really just see on NHRA.com that we are only 54 days away from Pomona. Yikes!

Well, after celebrating a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with my family it was off to A.J.'s shop for a week to work on the rig and race cars with Mark and the crew. After a year of non-stop racing it is amazing how unorganized things can get in a trailer. We spent a week unloading, cleaning, organizing, repacking, shipping out parts and ordering parts in anticipation of our upcoming test session.

I got home just in time for Toni to leave for a weekend trip to Key West with Melissa, Alli, her friend Callie and Aunt Loren. They called it just a "girl's trip" but it really was Melissa's bachelorette celebration. Every time I got a picture from them they were lounging by the pool or watching the sunset. Should I mention that it was freezing here at home. When I asked Toni what they did all weekend she told me they laid by the pool, read books, went to dinner and just relaxed – just what they wanted to do. That sure doesn't sound like my weekends spent in Key West!

Well, with Toni gone what was I suppose to do with myself? My brother and nephew decided to decorate their house for Christmas to surprise Aunt Loren when she got home so now I was really going to look bad when I told Toni that I had to work at the shop all weekend and didn't have time to do anything around the house. This certainly looked like a trip to Home Depot was definitely on the list of things to do. I surely wasn't going to sit around the house and do nothing and it was way to cold to wax the boat (besides it isn't docked behind the house during the winter).

I couldn't let my brother make me look bad either so I decided to decorate the front of the house and the yard. Fifteen boxes of net lights, several feet of lighted garland, a door wreath along with a big red bow and the yard was done. I must say, I was even proud of myself! Unfortunately, it was only noon, now what was I going to do? Luckily my brother was bored too so he came over, picked me up in his new car and we spent the day driving all over the city, stopping for an occasional snack and just having a fun day as brothers.

By the time Toni got home, (and she totally was impressed with my decorating skills), the only thing left on my Christmas "to-do" list was to get the Christmas tree. Not a problem! It was off to see my good friend Carrie Nalls and before Toni got back from the shop I had the tree at the house.  Well, technically it was still in the van because it took both of us to drag that tree in the house and upright it. Toni said that it wasn't any worse than carrying a transmission but I think she has been away from carrying her transmissions way too long. A twelve foot tree with a trunk diameter of 10 inches is way heavier than any transmission that I have ever carried.

Once again, it was time to impress Toni with my decorating skills. I offered to put the lights on the tree while she did some shopping. How hard can that be? Of course I had to run back up to Home Depot to pick up a few hundred more lights but that should only take me a few minutes, right? Ha! The only lights on the shelves of 5 stores were LED lights and I was told that those were not going on our Christmas tree. Oh boy, what did I get myself into now? Finally, several more stops and a few hours later, I had bought every regular little white light set that I could find in the area. Now it was time to get them all on the tree.

Well, as they say the rest is history. The tree got decorated without any more problems, Toni finished decorating the inside of the house and though she still has some shopping to do, I definitely made some points with the elves this Christmas.

I didn't get to enjoy the tree for too long as I had to hit the road again and head back to Greeneville, TN to spend this week at the Johnson & Johnson racing shop. This time we were getting engines in the race car and getting everything ready for our first week of testing. We finally got the last part loaded yesterday evening, everyone loaded up and drove home for the weekend…well at least part of it.

I got home about 1:00 am this morning, have spent today in the office, will celebrate an early Christmas tomorrow with Jamie, his family and Jon and Alli and then will fly to Bradenton, Florida early Sunday morning. Our plan is to get everything set up in Bradenton on Sunday and officially start testing for our 2012 season early on Monday morning. We will test Monday through Thursday and then fly home in time for Christmas and then Melissa's wedding on December 30. Fun times ahead!!!

Thanks to all of you for your patience in waiting for my blogs. I will be pretty busy next week but Toni has promised me that she will write a blog and let everyone know how testing is going and fill you in on our early Christmas celebration with the kids. I hope everyone is having a great holiday season and I really hope that those of you that don't want LED lights on your trees already have regular lights bought. By the way, do you know what is even better than catching the Christmas spirit? It is allowing the Christmas spirit to catch you! Enjoy your holidays everyone because after all…Tis the Season!