Happy Thanksgiving!

This week we celebrated Thanksgiving! We drove down to Westerville to visit my parents, and we were so fortunate that Kris and Linda were also able to come down too. It is such a blessing that our parents are such great friends and we can celebrate events like this together.

Before the actual Thanksgiving, we did a few things. Monday was pretty much a nothing day, though. Keira seemed a ton better, but we didn't want to risk it and kept things really low key for the morning. However, it was the day of the celebration for the GOTR, and I ended up bringing Keira and Soren with me. They had fun, and we had a ton of pizza left over. They enjoyed the girls and some brought younger siblings.


On Tuesday, Keira was good to go to school. While she was there, we got the oil changed in my car. It is pretty painful to keep Soren entertained in the dealership, so I was really happy when it only cost around $4.50 after I redeemed a coupon plus our owner advantage reward. I used an F150 truck bed for a play yard at one point. Soren really enjoyed it.

Keira brought home a ton of fall decorations today too. I think many of these were hanging in her classroom.


We got in a quick run at Maybury in the evening, and it was SO DARK! I really should have brought a lamp with me. It was a perfect temperature the whole time, in the low 50s, but just dark. Thankfully I didn't turn an ankle or anything. Ryan has been riding with a lamp for some time now, and I think it is finally time for me to start as well.

Wednesday was a busy day. There were no storytimes this week, but we hit the gym for a quick swim. Once home, we packed up to be ready to leave we Ryan got home. We got into Westerville close to bedtime for the kids, but we had a little bit of time to play.


Thursday was the big day! We started off at the Flying Feather 4 Miler in Dublin. I was very pleased with my finish time of 30:12, and I was 8th in my very large age group. There was a pretty large group running; Kris, Linda, Bob, and me, as well as friends Corey and Crystal. Soren wasn't feeling very well, and unfortunately we didn't realize it until we were at the race. He cried almost the whole time. Below: Corey, John, Jason, Crystal, Me, Bob



Kris, Linda, Bob, Me, and Soren (wearing a hoodie and facing me)

Once home, we got into cooking mode and had a great Thanksgiving dinner. Sarah and her boyfriend came over, as well as David and two of his roommates from Italy. The meal was great, and it was wonderful to share it with our family. Below: Miriam and Bob
Me and Keira
Linda and Kris
Soren and Ryan
Sarah and Me (and broccoli)
David and Sarah
Keira
Soren and Keira with Sarah's dog, Moose. They both LOVED him, and he is great with kids.

Black Friday was really a non-event for us. No big shopping sprees or getting up early. We instead had lunch with almost everyone from Thursday at Cap City. It was wonderful as usual.





Soren was still not feeling fabulous, so we didn't do much else. Ryan and I were able to have a date and saw New Moon. We enjoyed it, although I won't be posting pics of any characters here, as it is only a movie.



On Saturday, we had a lazy morning with a yummy pancake breakfast. I got a short quick run, and then we got on the road. We made a quick stop at Road Runner Sports, one of the online stores that I use to find good deals on shoes that only has a few actual stores, and found a fantastic deal on my shoe that had just gone to clearance, in my color, and they only had my size! How crazy is that! I can't wait to try them out. We got back into town without any issues and that evening, Ryan and I started pulling out Christmas decorations. With us leaving so early for Germany this year, we need to get a head start on them to make it worth doing. I also had to make some last minute calls for Primary since we had decided that we would be keeping everyone home from church due to illness.


On Sunday, we had a nice, lazy, restful day at home. We got most of our remaining Christmas decorations out and set up. We purposefully left some put away, because Soren is going to be in to everything this year. We had to take shifts working on the tree, because he wanted to touch EVERYTHING! The Little People Nativity was not the distraction for him that it was for Keira, but they both really enjoyed playing with it. They need to work on sharing it, though.


Keira was able to help decorate the tree.


Soren was kept occupied temporarily on the box from a fraction of the decorations.

Note that the stocking were hung from the hutch with care. In the past, they had been hung from the staircase (since we don't have a fireplace or chimney), but we didn't feel like having daily bonkings from the holders like last year, and that was just Keira.
Up for next week, we will hopefully all be healthy again and get back to our normal activities. We will have Ryan's work Christmas Party as well.