I love Thanksgiving. No gifts to buy. No costumes to sew. No tree to trim.

Just cook some food, and share with family & friends. Hang out, watch TV, play games…

This morning I started my day with morning 7 mile run with May. It’s been 10 days since the last time I ran, which is, I believe, the longest time I’ve gone without running since I started this crazy train (running train, that is). But I *love* pre-burning calories on Thanksgiving – it’s a healthy way to start the day.

It was a good run – I ran comfortably and felt good when we were done. We moved through a wide variety of topics during that run: the tragedy of a friends’ wife’s recent death, husband frustrations, kid stories, motivation to lose weight, faith/manifestation, swim meet software, interesting client stories, javascript, job hunting, charity… and a few other topics am sure I forgot about.

We finished with about a half mile walk to the cars. And then I told my friend how thankful I am for her friendship. Because life is short, and you have to tell the people who mean the most to you that you value them.

I got in the car and had voicemails from Doug asking me to pick up ground pepper and a new peeler on the way home.

As I got to King Soopers, I was feeling light and hopeful. I smiled at the people doing their last minute shopping for the holiday meal.

When I came home, I was welcomed by a piano/guitar duet played by Zander and Doug – The Main Theme from Star Wars.

After a while, we all headed to the kitchen for various peeling and chopping tasks for the cranberry apple relish and the mashed potatoes. The boys were excited to help with everything. This year they really were a big help. It was a nice family thing to do together.

Later, as we picked up the toys downstairs, the boys helped me sort their toys – we put things away and got rid of broken toys.

Then we all hit the showers to get cleaned up and dressed for Thanksgiving at Georgiana & Tom’s house. It’s going to be a big gathering- The Scotts, The Scotts, The Reynolds, The Carpios, The Scott/Dukes… There’s going to be turkey, stuffing, salad, dressing, pies, lumpia, sweet potato casserole, mac & cheese, coconut cake and flan… I can’t wait!