Gobble Gobble

We headed east for Thanksgiving like we've done in the past. We have family in Pittsburgh, which is about a 7-hour drive from Chicago. We love Pittsburgh. It's big enough to get a city feel, has bridges and water and rolling hills and good food. It's a fun city. Did I mention I am a city girl? Yep.

I'm always happy to leave the Midwest for something more exciting and Pittsburgh is always more exciting. It especially helps that when we're there, we're with family who loves on our kids and gives us breaks. Three cheers for that!

We had a great time. We woke up at 3 a.m. on Wednesday and drove the entire 7 hours with just one 20-minute stop for gas and a stretch. We arrived at lunchtime and had lunch with Gramie, Grandpa, Aunt Mansa & Max. The rest of the day was pool time, relaxing, skipping naptime, and Primanti Brothers (though they're rated a 5/10 this time and I'm honestly not sure we'll return).

Thanksgiving morning we woke up and ditched left the kids with the grandparents and ran the Turkey Trot Downtown. I made some pretty fun costumes that Aunt Mansa and I wore, while the guys sported some Target turkey hats.

Thursday afternoon and evening was spent at Aunt Ceil's house. I love their house and love them even more. They made this vegetarian some delicious red lentils and rice that I could seriously eat for every meal. Thanksgiving dinner is always really underwhelming for me because it usually consists of mashed potatoes, a side of veggies and bread. But not there! Delicious all around. Benjamin disagreed, but he never really eats anything, so that's no surprise. Family was great and we had a great showing. {Great} Gramie & Papa were at Thanksgiving and it was so nice to see them, as well as Aunt Jan who spends most of her time in Portland (another one of my favorite cities!).

Friday was spent at Aunt Helen's house, about 45 minutes from Downtown. She has three horses and Benjamin sat on one. Maybe next year he'll actually ride! We spent the day with everyone just relaxing. I was exhausted because Claire seemed to think waking every two hours the night before was a good idea... so we made the decision to head home that evening and just leave around dinnertime because if she was going to be waking every 2 hours anyway, we might as well leave before bedtime rather than wait until 3 a.m. again. That way we'd make it home just past midnight and get at least 7 hours of sleep (and it worked!).

I drove the first 3.5 hours back home and the husband drove the last 3.5 hours. We literally stopped for 2 minutes just to fill a 1/2 tank of gas and were off again. We arrived home around 12:30 a.m. and Claire slept the majority of the time. Benjamin was awake for the majority (even at Midnight!), but was so tired from all the family and festivities that he was calm and cool just sitting in his carseat.

It was our first road trip with two in the backseat! This was our first one over 2 hours with both of them and we deemed it successful!

Fall Color 5k

I've been itching to get out and go for a family race since Claire was born. Of course, she was too little and born during the longest winter ever, so that couldn't happen right away. Now that we're on the verge of another long winter (snow flurries on Saturday, people!), we definitely needed to make it happen.

We signed up for a local 5k along with about 2,000 other people at the Arboretum in the suburbs. It's one of my favorite places in all of Illinois with so much for kids to explore and nature all around you. We went with friends to a concert night for kids there a couple months ago and it was just so great. Here's a little throwback to December 2012 with pudgy Benjamin at the Arboretum. He was just one month older than Claire there. You almost forget you're in the middle of a populated suburb when you're there. Benjamin loves the tree houses and children's garden and all the offerings for little ones. We don't have a membership, but plan to get one next year for Benjamin and Claire to run and play and explore.

The couple who took this photo ran with their Baby Jogger Citi Mini and kept pace with us the entire time weaving through walkers. Claire's snowsuit is a hand-me-down from Benjamin that was a gift... and it's awesome. And blue. :)

The runners with strollers were sandwiched between the runners and walkers. We were essentially behind the people who were determined to "run" and that often ran the first 1/4 mile and then walked. This is a relatively steep run (for Illinois), but the inclines felt good and made it interesting. Aside from the whining from the toddler to pick him up, it was enjoyable and over before we knew it. Not the fastest time (but we're such slow runners anyway), but considering we were dodging walkers left and right and pushing the kids in the double jogger, we were fine with our 34:00 time. It was for fun, after all. It was one of those days I could've just kept running because it felt so good with the 36-degree weather and was just so pretty. We plan to make this race a tradition for our family.

After our race, we had to get Benjamin all ready for his kid's dash! Check out the video on Instagram of Benjamin not in action. He was cranky all morning to begin with, so I expected nothing more, really. Finally Dad went in there and ran with him after all the other kids had dashed on by and then he melted in the middle of the dash. I then ran with him to the end with Claire in my arms. He wasn't the only crier, but anyway.

Much more content painting a pumpkin (for 2 minutes) than running that dash!

We are headed to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving this year and signed ourselves up for the Turkey Trot that runs us around PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates) and over the Robert Clemente Bridge. We'll be running that with "Aunt Mansa" and her boyfriend while the kiddos are back at the hotel with Gramie & Grandpa. Got to find some way to make up for the sizeable amount of Prantl's Bakery Burnt Almond Torte & Primanti Brothers I plan to eat while there!