Thanksgiving Day

What a day...

This morning I got up and hurried to get ready to run in the "Race to Feed the Hungry" (5k) with my friend Kristel.  I put my right contact in, no problem. Put my left contact in and felt as if I had dumped burning acid in my eye.  I grabbed the contact out and frantically flushed my eye out and it gradually started to feel a little better, although it was definitely still stinging.  I had run out of contact solution the night before right after filling the right eye case, had dug around in a drawer and found an old bottle of sample contact solution and had used it for my left contact.  Now that I felt like my eye had been acid burned I looked at the bottle and apparently this solution wasn't just the regular old 3-in-one stuff.  You had to use a special kind of container and it said not to put it directly on the contact.  Oops.

Plan B: run in glasses which I usually avoid doing at all costs.  Also wear glasses for the next week or so till I can get an eye appointment since I cannot seem to find my box of contacts that I just opened a week and a half before. Be thankful I have glasses to wear. Also hope that I haven't done any permanent damage to my eye.

I hurried off to pick up Kristel and left Chris and the kids.  He was still undecided as to whether he was going to try to come watch me run.  Once Kristel and I got there and walked up to where it started (leaving my phone in the car of course) I realized that it was a way bigger event than I had known and there were tons of people running.  Also, we waited and waited for it to start but apparently they had a lot of last minute sign ups and so started about 20 minutes late.  At this point I was wishing I had my phone to tell Chris not to try to come as parking would be crazy and I had no idea when we would finish.   

The race finally started and we had quite a nice run, but the course ended up being about 3.6 miles instead of 3.1 like it was supposed to be.  This made our time several minutes longer than it should have been which we thought was weird. Luckily I had my GPS watch to tell us how far we had run so we didn't think we had just run super slowly. As I rounded the last corner I could see Chris and the kids waiting for me by the finish and immediately saw that Elijah was hysterical.  I waved to them as we ran by, grabbed some water and went around to find them.  Poor Elijah's hands were terribly cold and he just would not calm down.  Chris had sped over there to try to make it in time, and then had ended up standing around waiting for 25 minutes in the freezing morning air because of the races late start. I think a combination of the cold, the loud music and the crowd just put Elijah over the edge. I have never seen him so inconsolable.  Isaac also started crying because he had wanted to run with me at the end, so as Chris made a b-line for the car with the Elijah, Kristel and I ran behind with Issac and William to try to make them feel better.  Finally Chris turned around and said I'd better take Elijah to see if he would do better, but he still wouldn't calm down so I ran for the van, buckled him in, got the boys in, hurriedly explained to Isaac who looked as if he was about to dissolve in tears again that I was just going to drop Kristel off and come home, and Chris took off.  Somewhere in this whole craziness Chris mentioned that the fridge and freezer in the house had stopped working some time in the night. Awesome.

Kristel and I hurried back to the other car, I dropped her off and got home as quickly as I could.  Chris had put Elijah down for a nap, so we started going through the fridge and freezer throwing a bunch of stuff away and salvaging what we could. While he was pulling stuff out of the freezer Chris spilled red berry juice all over the only pair of work pants he likes.  I quickly rinsed them and treated them, but don't have a whole lot of hope of saving them. Luckily though, we were able so save a fair amount of food and there is a fridge and freezer in the garage. Also it is cold enough outside that we could just set some stuff out there.  My parents are in Utah having Thanksgiving with my grandma so I can only imagine that this will be a fun surprise for them to come home to.

It was now about 10:45am, I had run 3.6 miles and had only eaten 1/2 a banana so I was famished.  I quickly ate a cutie and toaste an English muffin but realized the butter I put on it had kind of an "off" flavor and I couldn't finish it.  I also realized that I probably used some of that same stick of butter in one of my pies and so I had no idea what that would do to the flavor and edibleness of whatever pie it might have been.

I jumped quickly in the shower and got ready as fast as I could, and then ran upstairs to finish up one of the pies.  I had saved putting the bananas, toffee and whipped cream on the banoffee pie till right before we left because I didn't want it to get soggy or the bananas to go brown.   I had to try the whipped cream 3 times because the cream had gotten warm in the fridge and wasn't whipping properly.  On the third try it turned out okay, although not as stiff as I would have liked, and I was able to finish up the pie which looked quite beautiful.

At this point we were running late to get to Chris's sisters house 25 minutes away for dinner at 1:00.  They had scheduled it for that time because Chris had to work at 3:00 so we knew we needed to hurry.  Chris got the kids and pies in the car and then took off in his own car. As I hurried to lock up and grab the last couple of things I went to grab diapers and realized that our diaper bin was empty.  I found one diaper in the diaper bag and literally felt like I was having a panic attack as I thought about the implications of running out of diapers on Thanksgiving/Black Friday when Chris had to work both days and I would have to take the kids with me to the store.  I did some deep breathing flagged down Chris as he was pulling out of the driveway, and he told me there were a few diapers in the car.  Luckily I found 4 or 5.  Phew.  We could make it.

-Speed off to Katherine's house.- 

When we got there I lifted the trunk to get the pies out and saw that during the drive two pies had jumped on top of the beautiful banoffee pie I had JUST finished making and had made a huge mess.  Chris kept me (somewhat) calm and told me we could fix it.

At this point I was ready for the day to be over.  But Chris was right...we could and did fix it.  The pie didn't look quite as beautiful as it had originally, but was still acceptable, and we cleaned everything else up.

And then...everything went right.

It was as if up until 1:15pm we had been living in a Murphy's law (anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) universe, and then all of a sudden the universe righted itself, birds started singing and flowers blooming. Okay...I guess we didn't have flowers blooming in November, but the weather was beautiful. The big kids disappeared to go play with their cousins while we finished getting dinner on. Elijah was happy.  Dinner was (of course) delicious, all the big kids were old enough to sit at their own table and need minimal supervision, so we adults were able to talk and enjoy ourselves. Elijah happily ate everything I fed him and amused us by playing peek-a-boo. And while we were in the middle of dinner Chris got a phone call from work asking if he would be okay with going on-call instead of coming in.  Ummmmm....yes?!!

After dinner Trey (9) took Elijah outside to play. He pulled Elijah around in the wagon and chased the cat with him which of course Elijah absolutely loved.  The other kids disappeared again to play, and eventually went outside as well.  I am always happy on a day in the winter where my kids will go outside and gets some fresh air. It makes for happy kids and a happy mom. 

I made more whipped cream for the rest of the pies. It turned out much better than it had at my house, and everyone was very kind about the pies, even the banoffee one which at that point was more like soup than pie, but at least tasted super yummy. HA HA! I got really lucky with a new dark chocolate pie recipe and everyone raved about it.  It had the "perfect" texture. Phew!

Visiting was done, naps were taken, dishes were washed, the food put away, and goodbyes said.  Katherine gave the kids a really cool lego advent calendar as an early Christmas present.  They are SO excited about it.

And now we are home. The kids got in a little trouble because Chris found another place where they had written on the wall.  This has been a trend lately.  But it was actually okay with me because that meant that after they scrubbed it off (thank you Katherine for the magic erasers!) they got their pajamas on and went straight to bed a little before 8.  Minimal bedtime hassle. 

Now I am sitting here writing this book of a blog post while Chris is upstairs cleaning the kitchen.  I love that man.

It's been a long day, but a good day. A day to remember for the good and the not-so-good-but-will-be-funny-someday, which is why I wanted to write it all down in detail.  I have so much to be thankful for-not just in November, or on Thanksgiving Day, but all the time.  I hope that even when I stop writing it down every day, I will still remember to look for the good, the little things that make me smile, and the tender mercies every day.  One thing doing this has taught me is that even on the worst, or craziest or even on the most ordinary days there is always something to be thankful for if I just pay attention and remember to look for it. 

A few phone pics from the day:

The favorite chocolate pie

Peek-a-boo!

Pies and cheesecake.  Yum!

Isaac and Ozzie playing at the top of the stairs

Chris and uncle Roger enjoying their Thanksgiving nap