Weekend in the big "A"

Since Matt's done all of the blogging up to this point, I thought I'd take over the keyboard for this one. Since I hadn't seen my parents since September due to them cruising the Greek Isles and vacationing across Europe in October, I thought I'd take a few days off of work for a visit in Arlington with Matt and Lexi to join us on Friday. Riley and I flew up on Wednesday and enjoyed some time with Gigi and Deks. Mom and I attempted to do some old school (aka pre-baby days) leisurely shopping at North Park with Riley - but my sweet angel decided to join the terrible 2's a few months early and wanted nothing to do with strolling around the mall for a few hours while mommy shopped. She was only happy when we occasionally let her out of the stroller to run around. Note to self - I guess all my Christmas shopping will be done online this year! But all in all Riley enjoyed her visit and loved to explore Gigi's house and play. We had the whole family over Saturday night for an early birthday celebration and Riley and Hannah were thick as thieves and had a great time chasing each other and sitting next to each other reading and eating cake. And we also got great news that Rob and Erin are for sure having a boy (the last ultrasound wasn't conclusive) and we are excited about having another nephew in the mix!

I still managed to keep up with my marathon training despite being solo. I typically train with my two friends who live across the street and really needed them on the long run on Saturday. Somehow I managed with the help of my hip hop tunes on the nano. I did take a stroll down memory lane and ran up to my old elementary school, Pope. While I remember my school being a long ways away from the house and just knew it was atleast five miles - sadly it was only 2 short ones. My elementary school clan and I are still a tight group of sisters and it is fun to remember all the good times. It was funny to see the playground and all of the upgraded, safer equipment - not the tin slide that could give you a 3rd degree burn on a hot Texas day - or the monkey bars - we all remember what happened to Jason Cunningham :-). Then Meredith, I ran by your mom's house and just knew if I knocked on the door the smell of hot breakfast would greet me! And as it has been on the last couple of my long runs, Matt and Riley were there waiting to cheer me on at the end. Riley in her cute footy PJ's squealing "mommy!" with a big grin on her face running towards me - kind of like a Chariots of Fire moment :-) Just the motivation I needed to keep putting one tired foot in front of the other!
Matt told me not to ramble - and it looks like I'm headed in that direction - so I guess I will sign off until the next time I take over the keyboard! Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!