Happy Thanksgiving 2011!

This week was a short work week, but long fun week.  Keira only had school on Monday and Tuesday, and then we headed up to Ohio for Thankgiving on Wednesday.  We spent Thanksgiving day and Friday there, and returned to Kentucky Saturday morning to decorate the house for Christmas.

On Monday, it was a busy day.  We started off at Keira's school for her "T is for Turkey" Thanksgiving play.  It was very cute and Keira did a great job. 

Then, I went to the gym for a free personal training session which left me pretty much exhausted, but I swam quickly after anyway.  We grabbed a quick lunch out because I needed to do some last minute grocery shopping after my swim while Keira was at school.  I got a call from Ryan while we were out that he was having trouble with Best Buy's website during their Siliver Premier early Black Friday event.  I rushed home and tried my best, but was only able to get one item after trying online and being on hold for over an hour. Keira had ballet that evening, so it seemed like the day flew by!

On Tuesday, we had another full day.  I woke up and our drying rack had colapsed, and I hadn't even started to wash my clothes yet for the trip.  I took Soren to the gym again while Keira was at school.  It was raining too hard for me to want to run outside with Soren.  We went to Pottery Barn storytime, where Elf on a Shelf was read (and purchased).

We stopped at Target on the way back to get a new rack, and Channel 11 news was there conducting interviews on Black Friday shopping.  With our failed attempt at purchasing online items, I was able to tell the interviewer our tentative plan for being at Best Buy before midnight on Thanksgiving night.  I don't know if it aired or not, though.  I did take a photo of the newscasters doing ab work on the balls outside, like on the Target commercials with my friend Mary's crazy lookalike.

Keira played with Gracie that evening, for a little bit, and then after the kids went to bed, I got my pies made.

On Wednesday, I took both kids to the gym so that they could play together and hopefully Soren would be happier.  Then, we pretty much got packed up and hung out at home waiting for Ryan to get home so we could get on the road.

We stopped at IKEA so that we could check out table and chair sets, for both our kitchen and dining room.  Our kitchen table is no longer practical, with the grout in between the tile, and we don't have enough dining room chairs and trying to match chairs with our antique set will be a nightmare.  The dining room table will be relocated to the basement as a sofa table that we can use for entertaining.  We got into my parents' house a bit late for the kids, but they were OK.  My mom and I stayed up and did a bit of early Black Friday shopping online before heading to bed.

We woke up early on Thursday (but not as early as my dad who had to put the bird in the oven) to head to the Columbus Turkey Trot.  Keira and Soren were running in the Tot Trot, and I was doing the 5 miler.  I met up with my friend Amanda and her daughter Maddie, who were also running.  The kids did great, and were very excited to get their medals!

My race went pretty well, all things considered.  I had a PR, barely, but it has been YEARS since I ran a 5 mile race, so I actually thought I would have had a bigger PR.  Checking my past results, it wasn't that huge, but since I had a personal training session on Monday that left me in some major pain, as well as just finished a month of insane half marathoning, I was happy with it.  I was mostly happy with how excited the kids were about the whole thing.

We came home and got cleaned up and then waited for Kris and Linda to arrive, and snacked. 

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving meal.  It was hard to stop eating, even though I was so full!  We had so much food.  We had desserts, and then went to see Happy Feet 2 with everyone.  It was OK, but the kids enjoyed it.  We were also able to get some more of our Black Friday shopping completed online, and so we no longer needed to head to Best Buy this evening.  That was great, because people had actually been camped out for days outside there. 

We had a really fun Friday.  We went to Inniswood Gardens to walk around and enjoy the nice weather.  We took tons of pictures.

We went to the Columbus Zoo after lunch at Local Roots and really enjoyed the Polar Bear exhibit.  They were very playful, and a lot of the animals were very active.  There were so many pictures! Again, here are just a few:

Kris and Linda were driving back that evening, so we stayed at the Zoo through the first of the light shows.  It was pretty fun, and it was so nice that it wasn't freezing this time around.

We headed back to my parents house, and then got the kids fed and put to bed, and then headed out just the two of us.  We did stop at Best Buy to try to find the last remaining items, and they actually had all but one thing still.  Then we headed to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 1.  It has been such a long time since Ryan and I had gone out without the kids, it was nice for the break.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and got packed up.  We had a very quick drive home with hardly any traffic, and Ryan was able to watch the UM vs OSU game.  It was an exciting game, and UM won for the first time in a long time. 

I went for a run during the game, and then worked on getting the fall decorations put away so we could get out the Christmas decorations.  We spent the rest of the evening working on the decorations, and got just about everything finished up.  The one main thing we aren't sure how to hang is our Annaberg Star.  I think we need a scissor lift to hang it wear we want!  We had so many boxes to bring up! 

Soren was thrilled that the tree looked just like the picture.

We also brough out our "elf on a shelf".  Keira completely bought into it.  Soren on the other hand said, "that elf isn't real!".  Hopefully he doesn't ruin Christmas for Keira before she is ready one of these years.

On Sunday, we had a nice breakfast, and Soren went ahead and picked out his own clothes and got dressed on his own.  Ryan also got the xbox hooked up and made avatars for all of us, and the kids played around with it a bit while we got cleaned up for church.  Church was pretty rough today.  The elf pretty much had the opposite effect with Soren than it was intended.  We had to run home during sacrament meeting because he had an accident when I put him on time out for making too much noise while the sacrament prayer was being said.  I am not really sure if it was really an accident or more of an "on purpose".  Thankfully, we live super close.  His nursery teachers also informed us that he was having trouble being obedient.  I am not sure of what that entails, but my sunbeam class was also in rare form today.  Ryan had home teaching in the afternoon, and the kids continued to struggle with their behavior, and finally Ryan came home and things got a bit better, but we had several time outs while he was gone.  We also had a visit from our home teachers, so it was a busy night.  The kids did straighten out for our home teachers, but it was a tough day!

Short work week and Family Photos

November is a fun month  because it has lots of holidays.  Ryan had Monday off for Veteran's Day, and Keira had school.  The days of the week were themed for her, I think as part of an anti drug campaign.

On Monday, Keira got up and off to school, while everyone else was able to sleep in.

I took Soren to the gym for a swim, and Ryan worked on getting our Yakima skybox in the sky.  We purchased a hoist system to hang it from the ceiling of the garage.  Ryan took a break from working and we went to Chick Fil-A for lunch.  Keira does not like chicken, so it was nice to go with Soren and not hear her complain. We got the box hung up finally!  Keira had ballet that evening.

On Tuesday, it was dress like a rock star day.  We had a little trouble with it, finally deciding on a sparkly dress. 

I took Soren to the pottery barn storytime, and Elf on a Shelf was read.  I think we will have an elf visit our new home. 

After the kids came home from school, they went and played at Gracie's house for a little bit.

While the kids were playing, I learned that Three Cedars Farm, one of our favorite fall and early winter MI destinations for cider and donuts, was being forced to shut down.  We were extremely saddened by this, and I spent quite a bit of time on the computer trying to figure out what was going on.  Please check out Save Three Cedars Farm! on facebook for more information and to sign the petition.  We had Soren's birthday party there last year, and went there twice this year, as well has had our family picture taken with Santa the past two years.  It is really sad what is happening.

Wednesday didn't have a theme.  Keira was excited that she could wear whatever she wanted to school today.

I took Soren to the gym, and I learned how to do a flip turn!  I didn't learn it until after my workout, so I didn't get to use it while actually lap swimming.

On Thursday, Keira was to wear her favorite sports team.  She selected UM, for Ryan.  She also was able to match her doll, so she was pretty excited about that.  No one else had on UM clothes.  She said there were lots of UK fans.

I took Soren to the gym and had my first run since my races.  It felt pretty hard. 

Keira made an indian headband at school today.

On Friday, it was school spirit day. 

We had a busy day.  I took Soren to the gym while Keira was at school.  I was able to add flip turns into my workout, fairly well I would think.  I probably did about half of them OK, a quarter of them really poor/failed, and another quarter decent.  It made the workout go by a lot faster, both from a mental standpoint and a time standpoint.  Probably all those really messed up one where I didn't actually make it to the wall made my swim a bit shorter!  After the gym, we did a few errands, and then headed home for a fast lunch.  I had my parent teacher conference with Keira's teacher at school.  She is doing very well, so that made me pleased.  Also, I saw this on the bullentin board outside her class.  It melted my heart! (Keira is thankful for Soren)

I was able to bring Keira home from school, and she was excited to be a "car rider".  Then, we worked to get ready for our family pictures in the evening.  Once Ryan got home from work, we headed over to the JCP in St Matthews.  We were very pleased with the way they turned out.  We had dinner at Red Robin, but it was a late night for the kids.

On Saturday, we had a slow moving morning.  We got some trip planned figured out for December, and Ryan watched some football.  I went for a run, and when I got back, I took the kids biking.

When the game ended, we had planned to go with Ryan mountain biking, but Soren crashed out on the couch.  He asked Ryan if he could lay down on a certain spot, and then went to sleep.  He slept for a couple hours, while Ryan rode. 

He finally woke up, and we headed to the Summit to do some browsing and pick up some candles from Yankee Candle to make the house smell like a real Christmas tree.  Soren is pretty funny in that store.  I have brought him in several times, and he LOVES smelling all the candles.  A couple of the employees there have seen him before, and know he is pretty good with them, but he really stressed out one of the ladies.  The other customers got a big kick out of him.  He was running around shouting, "f'mell this one!" and  holding up different candles.  His cheeks smelled like candles when we left the store.  We also walked around the shopping area, because they had it lit for Christmas already.  It was weird to not really need coats and walk around with Christmas decorations out.  We also had dinner at Qdoba.  It was really good.  It is similar, but not exactly the same as Chipotle.  It was another late night for the kids.

On Sunday, we had a full day.  Everyone slept in a bit, so there wasn't as much time to get ready before church.  We also had breakfast and brunch.  The kids were starving when the woke up, so they had cereal, but then we had chocolate croissants, bacon, and eggs a bit later in the morning, but skipped lunch.  I had a lot of visual aids to make for my lesson, and the time went by really quickly.  Keira conked out during church, and slept until after Sacrament meeting was over.

Soren decorated a pumpkin at church too.  I warned his instructors that he had colored both his hands entirely blue with marker just this morning, when he coloring with Keira.  He seemed to do OK with them at church.  He was very attached to it.  There was a slight mix up with which one was his when Ryan got him, but thankfully, it got sorted out and he got to have "his" pumpkin.

That evening, we attended an Interfaith Thanksgiving Program that was held at our stake center.  We knew that the Primary would be performing, and on the program, there was one bullet point with two children's choirs.  We accidently sent Keira up too soon.  She did great with it, though.  She did OK, but was relieved to be united with her primary.  We had some quick refreshments and the headed home.

Up for next week, we be celebrating Thanksgiving!