I have seen lots of blogging awards floating around recently, so I am officially giving myself an award.  Since I haven’t posted since the day before Thanksgiving, I am giving myself the World’s Worst Blogger award!  Congratulations to me.

I’m happy to say, though, it is because things have been very busy and very good.  We had a great Thanksgiving.  After my cook and bake-fests the days leading up to the holiday, we set out for Oakland at 6:30am.  We met my friend Wanda, her husband and her six-year old twins at their house in the Oakland hills, and then we all drove together to Piedmont for the Piedmont Turkey Trot!  It was a three mile run through though Piedmont.

I had never been to Piedmont before, and it is incredible.  The houses are huge, the lawns manicured… it looks like a perfect suburbia.  Everybody was beautiful and had a golden retriever – no joke.  The weather was perfect too, which made for a GORGEOUS (but very HILLY) run.

I ate a Luna bar before we started.

Here’s S before the race.

Wanda’s six-year-old daughter, Taylor, wanted to take some pictures with my camera too.  So I let her have it and try to take a few shots.  The first ones were of the ground, then she got this beauty:

Finally we got this one, not too bad!

Here’s a pic of Taylor and I.

Taylor and Isaac did the race too.  At six years old!  I guess with marathoners as parents, they started walking, running, and doing races at a very early age.  That is so awesome!

We lined up to start, the start sounded, and we were off!

We finished in almost exactly 27 minutes, which means pretty much 9-minute miles.  We stopped to walk for a couple of minutes on one of the longer hills because S was having trouble, so we actually ran somewhere in the 8:50 range.  Not bad for Thanksgiving day fun race

After finishing, we waited for Wanda to cross the finish lines with the kids.  When she came… she had Brandon (her son’s friend) on her back!!!

She alternated carrying Isaac and Brandon almost the entire race.  That girl is an all-star!

Then, after crossing the finish line with Isaac and Brandon, she backtracked to find Taylor…. and ran it in with her and Karl.

Turkey trots are so fun.  Afterwards we got our t-shirts and some snacks.

And we headed to the bouncy house they had set up for the kids.

S wanted to bounce, but they said he was too big   After the kids were all bounced out, we headed back to Wanda’s house to shower and watch football before the turkey feast.  I helped Wanda in the kitchen a little bit (and by help, I mean that I talked to her while she cooked….)

The kids table was set up on one side of the dining room:

And the adults’ table was on the other side.

Eventually the star of the night was ready.

People started arriving – there were 14 of us total – and we sat down to eat.  There was food, fun, and conversation.

Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in all that was going on that I didn’t take a picture of my plate.  But suffice to say, it was a doozie.  I was a happy, stuffed turkey myself by the time I finished.  But I still had room for pie and ice cream.  There was two different apple pies, chocolate pie, sweet potato pie, and pumpkin pie.  And I had a little slice of each one, all were delicious.

The kids had a great time too.

The perfect Thanksgiving.

The only downside was the long drive home at the end of the night, when we were already exhausted.  But it was way worth it.

And… my BIG ANNOUNCEMENT for the day, week… month…….

We have a new family member!  Meet Mendy:

She is about a year old, and she was meant to come home with us.  We went to a couple of adoption fairs over the weekend.  We were looking for a tiny kitten to keep JB company and to be “S’s cat” since JB is “mine”.  He wanted either a black or a tabby kitten.  But when we walked into our third adoption fair, this cat was sitting up front in her cage.  I stuck my finger in the cage, and she rubbed up against my hand over and over.  We completely fell in love with her.  She is beautiful – white with a little bit of gray tabby marks and a gray tabby tail.  And beautiful blue eyes.  We took her out of the cage and she was happy as a clam in our laps – a total lap cat.  So that was that… we had to have her.

She is being delivered tonight, we can’t wait!

But while you are waiting…. check out….

• Rhodeygirl’s ‘tis the season giveaway
• Katie’s Amazing Artisana Nut Butter giveaway
• Iowa Girl’s popchips giveaway