blogger mom

It's been a really great long Thanksgiving weekend so far. We started on Tuesday night by staying up late and working on our living room. It's super cozy and pretty much the perfect spot to spend the winter hibernating with my family now. I love it! Wednesday morning Eric stayed with the kids while I got a haircut. Much needed and I'm happy with it. Left shortly after that for two nights at my parents. When we lived in Columbus we would only spend the day with them and so it was a lot of fun to load the kids in the car and head to Nana and Papaw's for a few days this year. I kept singing "over the river and through the woods" in my head all morning. Hopefully we weren't too much for my parents. It's a lot to have the six of us invade your house for that long!

We started Thanksgiving morning off with a bang. Alarms went off at 6am and all of us threw on our warm clothes, Nana made us a picnic breakfast to eat in the car, and we took off for the Thanksgiving race at Glacier Ridge Metro Park in Dublin. It was pouring when we left and quite cold. I almost called the whole thing off, but mom kept encouraging me to go and make the best of it. I'm so glad we did! First, Riley and Trey ran in the Gobbler Chase. It was a quarter mile race with about 200 kids. They were super cute and got some sweet medals, a new book and a Cheryl's cookie for all of their hard work. I had no idea Trey could move that fast. Eric then loaded them back into the car and drove them around Dublin to entertain them because they were freezing. I waited for the 4 mile race to begin. Jen came along...seriously, what a friend! That's an early morning on a holiday, and in the rain! She waited with me for the race to begin and waited for me to finish. The 5K at MVNU a few weeks ago was fun, but super low key and small. There were about 3500 people in this race, and it was a mile longer. For someone who just started running in July, this was a huge deal. The entire race was a learning process for me...what's the right pace to keep when the adrenaline kicks in from all the hype, where should I position myself, what should I do when I'm sweating through my fleece, should I stop for water...and I was by myself the entire four miles. But, it was good. I learned to trust myself and my body. I expected to run 12 minute miles, maybe 11. I finished the four miles in 40:03. To be honest, I was so stinking proud of myself I could hardly stand it. I have never had that feeling before. I have never participated in any type of athletics, ever. I'm sore, I probably pushed it a little too much...but I'm glad I did. Now I want to look for a 10K to run. I think it would be good to run a race that length before the half marathon in May.

We were back at my parents by 10:30am, just in time to feed sister as she woke up from her nap. My brother, Nicole and Austin came soon after that and we enjoyed Thanksgiving day with them, my parents, my grandma and Jen. Too much food, obviously. By 8pm I was completely exhausted from the early morning and the race and was thankful we were spending another night at my parents.

Today mom and I took Cora out for a Black Friday shopping extravaganza. She was a trooper...super flexible baby and so good. She sat on Santa's lap for the first time and entertained the rest of the shoppers with her big smile. My dad and Eric took the boys shopping for new basketball shoes and Evan managed to talk Paps into a new scooter. Then dad, Eric, Riley and Trey took off for the OSU basketball game! It's been a big weekend!

Now we are home and I can't help thinking back to the chain of events that began when we arrived home from Thanksgiving last year in Franklinton. Tonight I'm very thankful for our new home here in Gambier.

Here's the best part...we have two more days of Thanksgiving vacation! Tomorrow is the OSU/Michigan game. I'm trying to work up some excitement even though I'm so over football season. I'm going to dig out the Christmas boxes in the morning and start with the tree. I love this time of the year!