A New Thanksgiving Tradition...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! Hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing day with all of the food and traditions that you needed to make it feel like Thanksgiving to you.


Paul and I actually did something a little different than in years past, and we think we might make it a Biles Family tradition in the future.

We started by waking up at 5:45am and getting ready for a 5 mile race in Austin. We drove to Austin and joined eight to ten thousand other people that were also crazy enough to go running that morning. The weather dropped about 35 degrees on Wed, so Thursday morning it felt like 37 degrees with the windchill...which was quite a difference from the 80 degree weather we had been training in.

The Turkey Trot (put on by Thunder Cloud Subs in Austin) was a super fun 5 mile race that went up and down many hills, but because there were so many people running on the streets, the hills weren't that bad - at least we were all suffering together, right?

Apparently there were 3 water stops along the way, but I only saw the 2nd one because of the number of people around me - I was so focused on not running into someone in front of me that I hardly had time to look to the sides (where the water was).

Here's our stats according to Paul's Garmin (his GPS stopwatch): We finished in 44:06 minutes. Our first mile was at a 9:29 pace, then we got faster from there - 2nd was 8:48, 3rd was 8:59, 4th was 8:34, and the 5th mile was 8:16.

Here are our official race results sorted by age and gender. (Once you get to the page, press Ctrl + F, and then type in Biles - it's the easiest way to find our results). You can also go here to find the other categories. If you went to A&M or UT, you could get a race number with the colors of the Aggies or the Longhorns...you can view those results from that page to see which school did the best if you care...but since I'm not a Texan and didn't go to either of those schools, I really don't care. :)

Here's another picture of the turkey at the beginning of this post. Yep - it's a haybale, with spraypainted tin roofing sections as the tails. They get pretty creative out here in the country. :)

Girl Time!!

Okay, I got our camera back from Paul's office, so now I have access to the pics from my weekend in Chapel Hill. Enjoy!


On Friday, before Suz got to join us, we saw all the exhibits in the hallways surrounding the planetarium at UNC, but there weren't any showtimes during the weekend.

Later that night we started a friendly game of monopoly. At first, Julie was killing me and Jennie, so then Jennie and I joined forces to bring Julie down.

So then I started doing better except that I ended up going to jail a million times...okay maybe every third turn, but I went there A LOT!!

But in the end, my hotels had everyone else mortgaged to the hilt and I won. Which is a first for me - I never win monopoly, and usually won't even play it (especially with Paul since he always WINS)!

Anyway...we then played more games that Julie definitely won by a landslide (mainly because she knows lots of obscure Scottish words and can remember them under pressure and late at night).

On Saturday, Suzanne kicked the flu-bug out of her system (teachers should get some kind of presidential merit badge/award for working with snot-nosed kids during flu season) and we all got to hang out and tour UNC and eat and shop and goof off...and of course watch movies and play more games.

Below is one of the Arboretum pathways at UNC...very fun.

We went to a second-hand shop and Julie found fun fabric that is currently a strangely shaped apron that she will take apart and re-use......and Jennie found a Halloween costume...I don't actually know how she ended up using it - we had talked about her being the big bad wolf dressed up in Grandma's nightgown (from Little Red Riding Hood). But I think she would have bought it anyway just because it's red. :)

Suzanne and I didn't end up buying anything there, but we sure had fun trying things on!

Plants & Animals...but more Plants than Animals Part 1

Well, I took a blog break and didn't finish posting all the promised pictures from Big Bend. Once I got back to the "real world", work and schedules seemed to overtake me. It wasn't all work and no play though - I did get to go to Charlotte, NC to hang out with "my girls" from high school - Jennie, Julie, Suzanne - I wish we could have extended the weekend - I definitely had fun catching up on some much-needed girl time! (Oops, I meant to say Chapel Hill, NC - thanks for helping me with the geography Jennie!)

Back to the Big Bend pictures. Can you tell that I loved the time that we spent there? If anyone wants to go back with me, just let me know. I'd love to go explore in spring when all the flowers are out!

(This isn't really a plant or animal, but it was a fun picture)

This is a close-up of the lechuguilla plant's fruit after it finished blooming and the fruit has dried out.

Anyone know what kind of snake this is? I haven't a clue, but it was cool to see it slither around the rock. We have video of it that you can watch if you're interested. But first I need to find a faster internet connection so I can upload it - maybe I'll get the videos posted next time.

Yep, it's a tarantula. Apparently it was tarantula mating season. I was glad we didn't see one until the last day though. We also have a video of this. Once I get it posted (next time hopefully), I would recommend watching it so you can see it touch Paul's shoe - it will give you perspective of how big it was!

(Another angle of the same tarantula)

Cactus!! We mostly saw some variety of prickly pear cactus (not shown below). So this was a little different, although when it comes to cactus, all I know is that it's pokey and hurts if you get too close! (I readily admit I have no idea what variety of cactus this is).

But look what we found inside the above pictured cactus. We think it's some part of a tarantula - maybe the mandible??
Another variety of cactus that I can't identify. :)
Nope, the yellow part isn't a flower - we think it's new growth (in our humble opinion).


Here's a closeup of the plant above...Name? you want a name...you wouldn't remember if I told you...and I don't know what it's called anyway...but the flower is pretty!

We were hoping to find some kind of bird in the nest built in the cactus, but we weren't that lucky.

Talk about feeling small!!!

This tree had weirdly shaped berries - they weren't round - they were almost like those pictures of sickle cells that you see in biology pictures.

And the fuzzy outside appears to pop open and a smoother fruit is produced. One day I'll figure out what it's called...just not today.
Okay, I might have a name for this one - it's a yucca plant, but I can't get much more specific than that.
Here's the balancing rock that is at the end of a trail designated as Grapevine Hills on the Big Bend maps.
The funny thing is that the surrounding landscape was probably more interesting than this phenomenon. I mean, we definitely wondered how the rock ended up like this. But there were several smaller (but still BIG) rocks all over this area that looked like they could fall at any moment, even though they have probably been in the same position for decades.

This is another picture of a lechuguilla plant that had just finished blooming.

Can you believe it - I actually saw examples of all of the plants described on this sign (I didn't get a picture of the hechia (2nd plant from left), but I have non-blooming pics of all the rest! Which means I have names for them!
This is a candelilla bush. Apparently it can be boiled and high qualit wax extracted from it...which they can do in Mexico where they can harvest the bush (in the park, that's a BIG no-no!)
To me, the candelilla looks a little like asparagus. What do you think?


The plant below that looks all spindly to the right of the land formation (in the foreground) is the ocotillo plant. Ranger Yost said that because the area had received rain recently, this plant had green leaves. We saw other ocotillo plants around the park that didn't have green leaves anymore - because it hadn't received rain. So it's a pretty smart plant - and not a cactus even though it has huge thorns! The first picture is one that Heather took - mine wasn't as nice. Thanks for sharing Heather!

This is a close-up picture I took of the ocotillo showing its leaves. See what I mean when I say huge thorns?

Well, for now I'm going to leave it at this. I have more plant/animal pictures I want to post (we have a few of a Mexican blue jay!). But I'm out of time for now. So check back in later!