December is full of parties and fun. The kids are doing great in school and sure enjoy all the different aspects of it. Especially their friends and the class party. Brooke and I invited Grandma and Carol to our traditional activity of the Forgotten Carols. It is a play in St. George by Michael McClean. Brooke and I went last year and had so much fun we wanted to go again. It was so much fun we want to go forever. Brooke even said I could take her and her daughter. : ) Other parties for the month included school parties, City Council party and a big party with our big group of friends and their families. It was tons of fun. Another gathering we had was the Christmas Eve tradition of opening one present from Grandpa and Grandma Kidd. Well my mom had gone the extra mile and made a few extra pajamas so we had some friends over to open gifts and read the Christmas story in Luke. We had tons of fun!! I enjoy December and all the gatherings, but it sure is a busy month. One down side to this month involved my running. I had struggled with a sore knee since the marathon in October, then the sickness in November. I had been unable to commit to running the Boston Marathon because of the two problems. After finding out the beginning of December my knee would be fine I decided to start the training and enter the race. Well, when I tried to enter the race the registration was closed. So I will not be running Boston this year, but will next year. Maybe Darin will be running it with me since he is turning out to be a running maniac! Other than that, the month of December was great!
December started with Darin running a relay race with four other guys. I had planned on running it with some friends, but after getting sick I was lucky to be able to run a mile. Darin had a great time and their team did good. They each ran about 10 miles during two different legs. It was an all day event which was good for us at home so we could put up our Christmas decorations and lights. If any of you know Darin, him being gone while we did that was good. : ) The next weekend was the Thomas Christmas Party. There were lots of family for that and it was good to see them. Kayla was back from college and Josh came over from St. George. We missed not having Gary, Jill, Calais, Jordyn and Camille who are in Texas. We also missed Greg, Diana, Chris, Andrew and Kimberly who are in Washington. It was a fun party with our family, Amy's family and several other cousins and grandparents.
I have gotten way behind on this blogging thing! After the marathon my training decreased quite a bit. Running just wasn't as fun anymore. I enjoyed being with Darin and my friends but did not go too much. Darin, Matthew and I did run the Butch Cassidy 10K the beginning of November. It was a good race and we all got a medal for our respective age groups - old, young and younger! : ) The week before Thanksgiving I started to get a pretty good cough. I came home from work Thursday and called a sub for Friday. But Friday morning I was headed to the doctor. Well with all the hand sanitizing and precautions we had taken, it did not matter, I had gotten the H1N1 virus. I don't think I have ever been so sick. It hit fast and very hard. I was about 5 days in bed and several days after that with little energy. It is now January and I am finally over the cough. I immediately had the kids get immunized for it. I did not want them to feel like I did. I was out of commission the entire week of Thanksgiving. Luckily we had a family party at Darin's parents' home so I did not have to prepare the meal. Thanks to extended family for the party. While I was sick my family was great. Darin took care of the meals and the kids. Matt would come home during breaks at school and lunch to check on me. I found out that Britton could go only two days without physical contact from mom, then he needed a hug. Love that kid. Brooke was the little mom and helped with the family. Bryce brought me breakfast in bed one day. It looked great too, but since I was unable to keep any food down for four days I had to fake eating it. As a mom though, I showed my extreme appreciation. The house did continue to work and everyone was good. Amazingly no one else got sick, so I had that to be thankful for. On Thanksgiving morning the other five ran a Turkey Trot race. They are amazing. I love to watch them run! They destroy lots of people too. Just a little side note. : ) Well that was November and it was here and gone so fast. Maybe because I slept through so many days of it at the end.
Halloween is always a fun time for us. Last year I started a new tradition where the kids can be whatever they want at school for the parade, but for the evening Trunk or Treat and the few homes we go to, they have to be something that goes together in threes. This year was one of our best I think. During the day Bryce was a boxer, grandma made him a shiny robe and I bought him some boxing gloves. I also blacked his eye with some face paint. He looked good. Britton was a ninja. He had a fun costume with black body suit and yellow robe, we painted his face some too. Brooke was Pocahonatas. Grandma and her neighbor made a fun costume that looked like buckskin. They even made her little boots. They had fun at school and looked great in the parade around the school.
Now for the evening events they changed into another costume. They all had gray sweatpants with gray sweatshirts. Then grandma made three tails and masks. They already had sunglasses and I made three canes that were white with red tape at the bottom. Got the picture? Yep, they were the three blind mice! They were adorable. I dressed up like the Farmer's wife who cut off their tails! We had a fun evening. We went to a street that was well decorated and gave away fun stuff and lots of it. Then to the church for the Trunk or Treat. From there Mel and Jess came over for a Pinata time. Had fun with that, then we had to go to our regular Halloween visits. Saw Brother and Sister Cordell, Amy Fawcett and Roy and Jane Hoyt. That one is always fun, Jane buys the kids a box of cereal since about 4 years ago they went in her pantry when we were there trick or treating and each took some cereal. It was a fun evening. Already thinking about what we can be next year. Any ideas let me know! Had ideas of Three Musketeers or Three Stooges. :)
Running and then more running! We finished up our Cross Country season on Wednesday, Oct 21st. The week prior my kids ran Region in St. George and took 3rd. The boys qualified for State, but the girls were 4th, so they did not make it. We have the toughest region in the state, so we were looking forward to a high finish at state. Since we did not have very many kids, we took two vans to Salt Lake. Darin and I took one with three crazy boys, Matt and two of his friends, Ben and Rush. The other van was driven by another runner's parents, Ben and Angela Ashcraft. We got there Tuesday night and of course ate at Olive Garden. The race Wednesday afternoon was good. Grandma and Carol were also there to watch. The runners did well and placed pretty good. Our top runner was Rush who placed 12th. Matt had a good race and ran the race in 18:08. Our team placed 6th which was a good finish for us. The season was good and we had lots of success.
We decided to go to the pumpkin patch this past weekend. It was lots of fun. We met Jess and her family there so the kids had a great time playing with McKendry and Connor. They played on the horse swing, rode the train, pet the animals and played on the barn swing. After playing for a while we got on a tractor/trailor and rode out to the pumpkin patch. We walked around what seemed like forever to find the right pumpkin. We finally got them and rode back to the main park. It was a fun afternoon. We now have our pumpkins, but wait a week or two before we put pictures on of our carving party!
