Weekend Recap: Thanksgiving Edition

I finally am back in the groove after a very restful and fun Thanksgiving weekend. I headed down to Chris' family's lake house for the holiday. This was my first holiday with Chris' family so it was really special to spend time with them and learn each other's family traditions. For instance:

Turkey Trot

Ok, so this is hardly a long-standing tradition for me but the first race I ever did was a turkey trot. I have a soft spot for them. When Chris' mom emailed the family to ask if they were interested in doing a turkey trot I, of course, jumped at the chance. It was pretty chilly, but it was a nice change of pace from my usual runs and a great way to burn off calories to justify lots of pie later on in the day. I even finished in 30:34 despite having walked a little. Definitely something to repeat in future years. Let's call this one a tradition in the making...

Eating Thanksgiving Dinner at Dinner Time

My family always eats Thanksgiving at like 4pm because we don't eat lunch and are famished by then. Chris' family actually eats Thanksgiving dinner at a normal dinner hour. 

Not Talking While Eating Your Birthday Cake

As I previously mentioned, I recently celebrated my birthday. Chris' family, being awesome, wanted to celebrate with me so they made me a birthday cake and even got me a beautiful bracelet as a gift. It was really sweet of them and I very much appreciated the gesture. I also introduced them to my family tradition of not talking while eating your birthday cake. I have no idea where this tradition started, but in my family when you are the birthday boy/girl you are not allowed to speak from the first bite of birthday cake until you are finished with your whole piece. Everyone else at the table tries to get you to talk and you have to sit there quietly or try to mime your responses. Should you fail and accidentally say something, you have to sit under the table to finish your cake. This year, I failed.

There was also plenty of non-traditional fun to be hand. I have no idea how we started talking about this, but Chris, his brother, and his dad were all talking about how it's silly that girls go and get their nails done when it's so easy to do it yourself. We countered by saying that it wasn't as easy as they thought it was. In the end, we bet the guys that they wouldn't be able to paint their nails themselves without doing a terrible job. They bet that they would be able to give themselves lovely DIY manicures and that if they were successful we had to jump in the lake.

The guys paired off with the girls: Chris with me, Chris' brother with his girlfriend, and Chris' dad with Chris' sister. In the end, Chris' manicure was the only one that actually was good enough to warrant jumping in the lake! I told him I would gladly jump in the lake... in about 6 months from now.

So proud of his manicuring abilities

Hope everyone else had a fun and safe Thanksgiving holiday!