Thanksgiving Weekend

I went down to St. George for Thanksgiving weekend. I managed to avoid the blizzard weather by going down Wednesday-Saturday. It was a pretty low key weekend spent at Grandma and Grandpa's house with Chelsea and family. We did a little shopping and played with the kids and just hung out. It was a great weekend.

Karlee loved playing outside even though she was freezing. Jeff raked the leaves and Karlee loved jumping in them.

Malea gave Karson his first haircut

Karlee got a new coat for winter and did a little modeling for me

Girls Night...Melting Pot

A couple weeks Melting Pot was doing ladies night out so Kristi got a group of us together to go. It was so much fun! There was a little misunderstanding with what was included in the night, but the manager was nice and thanks to Kristi we got dessert too. The food was so yummy and we had a great time! Thanks Kristi for always planning fun things for us.

26.2...NYC version

It seems like Generation Gap has been planning the NYC trip/marathon for almost a year. We all signed up this past March, and thanks to Sharon and her connections we all got in. Training for this marathon was weird because it was only 5 weeks after the St. George marathon. The longest run in between was 15 miles so I felt sort of unprepared even though I was prepared. I started freaking out a few days before.

I went to the race expo pretty much right when I got in town. As soon as I walked in the door of the expo. There were people everywhere, and it was huge. It made me nervous but also really excited too.

Race day started pretty early considering the late start time of the race. We left the apartments at 6:30 to take the subway to the Staten Island Ferry as our assigned time of 7:30. Even though that was 3 hours before our start time we didn't stand around nearly as much as I thought we would. It was so great having the whole group there. By the time the race started, the group had separated a little, but there were still several of us starting together. It made it that much more exciting.

The race was AMAZING! It started on Staten Island, ran through all the burroughs, and ended in Central Park. There were over 40,000 runners and so many spectators. The energy from the crowd was great. There was so much entertainment and so much to look at during the race. I didn't get bored at all the whole time. I pretty much ran the whole race by myself with some flip flopping with Sharon. I loved this marathon. It was such an amazing experience, and I feel so lucky I had the opportunity to do it.

cute sign Laurann made for me

race expo


part of Generation Gap in the apartment and subway station

Judy and Chad in the subway. we met up with Teresa and Brynn

om the Staten Island ferry

on Staten Island pre-race



mile 16. Judy saw Shawnie and JoAnn who came to cheer

ladies I run with along the course



after the marathon

the next day at the finish line

NYC

I LOVE New York! It seems like there is a reason to go nearly every fall. I never get tired of it. As usual the trip was packed with lots of fun. Laurann came out for the first few days of the trip. We flew in on the red eye and wasted no time having fun.
Day 1...We arrived in NYC around 6:00 and took the subway into Manhattan. We dropped our stuff off at the apartments the running group rented. We resisted the major desire to sleep and went over to the race expo to pick up my race packet. The pre race anxiety hit as soon as we walked in the door. After the expo we went shopping in China town. We spent a couple hours and bought plenty of scarves, purses, and wallets. After shopping we went to Grand Central Station for lunch. It was CRAZY! We did a little more shopping around the hotel before going back to rest. We saw Promises Promises that night. The production was amazing, but the storyline was a little off.

race expo

lunch at Grand Central Station

we were so worn out after the show this is the only picture we got

Day 2...After our busy/productive day we decided to sleep in a little. We finally got out of the apartment in the mid morning and went to Times Square. We had an early lunch, shopped a little, and walked around. In the afternoon we went to Central Park. With the marathon the next day, I didn't really want to walk all over the park. We took a bicycle taxi around the bottom half of the park.

Times Square

in Central Park

our bicycle taxi

Day 3...marathon (more to come)

mile 16 with Sharon
Day 4...shopped and shopped and shopped and shopped and walked a lot too with Brynn, Teresa, and Jenny
Day 5...I went to Ginny's (friend from freshman year of college) apartment to visit with her and meet her darling little daughter. I did a little more shopping before flying home that night.
Ginny and Xela