Many Thanks

'Tis December.  Christmas is coming!  I'm excited.  But last weekend was Thanksgiving!  And it was exciting too.  Here's what we did:

The day before Thanksgiving (I couldn't let this go unreported...) we went to see The Muppets.

!!!!!  I have not stopped thinking about it since!  Those who know me well know that I have long held a special place for the Muppets in my heart, and after their most recent cinematic offering turned out to be pretty disappointing, fans were super excited that they were coming back to the big screen (10+ years later) in what looked to be fine form.  And in fine form they truly were!  It was funny and sweet and nostalgic and (okay, maybe at times a little overly) sentimental, but fans of the original movies or The Muppet Show will find plenty of references and exciting throwbacks throughout.  It was a musical, as it should be, and Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords) wrote some really awesome songs that fit perfectly into the canon of Muppet Music.  I have no particular love for Jason Segel's body of work, but I do admire his diligence in bringing the Muppets back to the movies in the right way, and he owned his silly but touching role in this, and Amy Adams was perfect as his sweetly pining girlfriend, basically the kind of part she was born to play.  Anyway, go see it!  I think the new character of Walter actually fits really well in the world of the Muppets, and I'm kind of curious how he will factor into the franchise as time goes by.  It had heart and it was a perfect Thanksgiving weekend release.  I basically haven't stopped listening to the soundtrack since it came out.  We had been having a Muppet 'thon the weeks leading up to this big event, and it was so exciting to end on such a high note.  Thanks for the support, Wife!  (It was even worth the swap for the Fast and the Furious marathon, ha ha.)  I want to see it again!

Then on Thursday we were up nice and early to head over to The Fleet Feet Turkey Trot 5K in American Fork.  It was a pretty unique race, going all around the shopping center, behind stores and through parking lots, and it made for a pretty flat and interesting course, and there was a nice big turnout!  We just don't usually run in races with 800 people!  I came in 4th (ouch, I came THIS close to winning a pie... I guess it's a good thing our Thanksgiving dinner's success didn't depend on me winning one, though among us we took home a few anyway), but I was satisfied with my time (about 20:42, 6:42/mile), and Julie, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Cami, Amber and Amber's friend Corie all did great too.  And the race shirts were hoodies!  Right on.

You really want to see the one that was taken right before this when Cami tried to jump up next to me and she's making this face kind of like ;Sp and it's all blurry, but... I think I would be put on Santa's (and Cami's) Naughty List if I put that on the interwebs for all to see.

 

We love to run and we love each other.

Amber and Corie wanted to take a jumping picture.  We're all in this together!

So then Cami decided to pay tribute to an old favorite.

I tried to join in, since the original had two people (see a reunion reenactment here), but we just couldn't get it in sync.  This turned out to be the best one we took, and it was actually the first.

But Cami decided to have a solo one with a little more evident enthusiasm.

Then we rushed home so we could get our contributions to dinner ready.  Julie worked all afternoon on a most beautiful cake, which was amazing, and very well-received, and we also packed up some green bean casserole and sweet potatoes and headed up to the house.  Dinner was delightful and delicious!  We were a little late, so we were sad that people were kind of full by the time our wonderful sides arrived, but I guess that just meant that we had more leftovers to enjoy. :D

Aaaand for some reason I never ever have any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner, so you'll just have to imagine scrumptious-looking foods and scrumptious-looking people eating said foods, or wait a few days and perhaps find those on everyone else's blogs.  (But you can [and should] see the cake that Julie made right here.  OMGoodness, sooo delicious.)

I am thankful for ever so many things that I can hardly enumerate or name them, but definitely at the top of the list are faith, family, Savior and of course Wife.  Happy Thanksgiving, one and all.

(And now this means I am safe to listen to Christmas music without fear of abuse or ridicule, right?  Suckaz, I've been filtering it in for weeks!  In past years I have been bullied so into waiting until the "Christmas season" that by the time Christmas finally arrived, I realized my paranoia had caused me to hardly listen to any at all.  NO MORE!  There's too much great music and meaning to relegate its listening and celebration to just a few weeks.)