Holiday Time, Week 1 !

And so it begins! The craziness, that is. Each and every week this month has all kinds of things going on! It's hard to keep up with if I don't have every detail written down :)

First, Nate had his fundraising run to benefit both his school and classroom. I volunteered to help out - the kids were wonderful runners!

Here we come!

While that was going on, Nana took Aaron to make a gingerbread house -

 

The rest of the week was devoted to getting ready to be gone for the weekend - hubby and I headed down to Tucson for my marathon (!) while the boys stayed with my parents. Good thing! I'm sure the boys wouldn't have appreciated being up at 4am the day of my race (nor the loud toddler in the room next door at night, either...)

They really did get to do some fun things with Nana and Pap Pap while we were gone. They helped hang lights -

...and even got to meet St Nick, Mrs Claus and some elves !

As long as I have this candy cane I'll pose with you

They went out for pizza, helped bake cookies...lots of stuff to occupy their time and not think of mommy and daddy :) Meanwhile, mommy was running...and running...and still running. I don't mean to sound like Miss Negativity, but I was bummed with the weather - high never went above 30's or 40's for sure, and it rained all throughout the race :( Neither of which I've had experience with before. I've run in the cold, but it gradually got warmer....

So much low was my running spirit that by mile 13 I was begging Josh to pick me up, I was ready to throw in the towel (with the weather, losing some of my food on my fuel belt, throwing off gloves that later I had wanted back...) But...I got to thinking that even though in the moment it sounded like a really good idea, in the long run I would have been disappointed (nor did I want to tell anyone that I quit and didn't finish). So, though it took me six hours, I completed the marathon. I sure was happy to be done!

No more winter marathons for me! I discovered I become more stiff, not faster, in cold runs

I'm definately sore, trying to get over it as I bake and clean away for a holiday cookie exchange I'm hosting for our Moms Club this week! This part of the month is my favorite - all of the parties.