You live only once: Is it December already?

Time is seriously passing me by. I can't believe it's December 1st. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I sure did! I am sure I ate more dessert than food!

I had a crazy Thanksgiving weekend so I am thankful for having a fairly lazy day today if you call volunteering in my son's class this morning and putting up all of the holiday decorations in the house {minus tree decorating until Darren gets home from school.}

Thursday we whooped it up at my cousin's house here in town. It was nice not to have to drive far. We had a great time and TONS of food. My cousin Dean outdoes himself with homemade desserts and my mom's famous pumpkin pie was delicious as usual. Mmmmm...

The "fam"

them boys!

Dean and Monica:

Darren and cousin Gabrielle:

Sis-in-law Isabelle and Jen:

While some of the guys watched football a group of us played about 3 hours worth of Tangoes. If you have not played this game you MUST! It is so addicting! Plus it's great for the brain {which I desperately need!}

Friday I drove down to San Jose and met up with friends from high school. Some of whom I have not seen in 10 years. We sat around and talked and laughed for hours. It felt as if we hadn't lost a step since high school. We are each the same person at the core but just a bit older. We are going to plan a summer picnic so that the next time we get together we can meet each others' spouses and kids. I wish I would have thought to take some pictures but I guess that'll have to wait until next time.

Saturday was my mother-in-law's 80th birthday party. We had a scrumtious dinner and then watched a video montage my brother-in-law put together of photos from her teenage years up to the present.

Nilta and all the grandchildren:

Her children and in-laws:

Nilta and my parents:

Darren and his Granny:

After all of the big dinner celebrations I had my first 5K run on Sunday morning and I had a BLAST. I wasn't too thrilled with waking up at 5:30am and driving to San Francisco for the race but once the run started the endorphins kicked in and I ran the 3.3 miles in 32 minutes. Lisa and I finished together and Ginger was a short distance behind due to some calf cramps.

Pre-run shot:

Here's Ginger at the finish line. Way to go, Gingy!

Here we are post-run {excuse the sweat!}:

Ginger enjoying the free Starbucks:

The best part of the run was watching the runners cheer each other on. The top ten runners were incredible to watch and everyone began applauding them as they passed. At the beginning of the race we passed a woman who must have been in her 80's and she was jogging her heart out. What inspiration. I loved the experience so much I now have my eyes set on a 10k run here in town in 2 weeks. I haven't registered for it yet but I'm hoping a group of us from the gym can all go together for support and motivation. Here are some post-run crowd shots: