Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I’m starting to panic a little about all the things I need to get done today, so it seemed like a good time to put off everything on my to-do list by writing a blog post.

I had the girls last weekend, and I try to plan outings for us whenever they’re with me, but I had a little bit of a hard time trying to figure out something fun for us to do.

On Saturday, Catie wanted to go to Dave’s. He joined a gym that has an indoor pool, and she wanted to go swimming. He didn’t mind taking her, and I think it’s good for her to get some one-on-one time with her dad, so I said ok. Lucy wanted to go see my parents (she likes being the only grandchild, it means she gets ALL the attention), so I took her over to their house, and went for a long run.

I’m trying to do my long runs on the weekends to train for the half-marathon. And even though I don’t technically have to start a training plan until next month, I want to get a jump on it now, because I’m pretty sure there are going to be days in January and February where I wimp out on doing the super-long runs.

I was only planning on going maybe 7 or 8 miles, like I have the last few weekends, but I was mentally calculating the distance from my parents’ house, rather than my house, and math isn’t my strong suit, so… well.

I ran over 10 miles. And THAT is not a sentence I ever thought I’d type.

By Sunday, I had figured out a fun outing for me, Chris, and the kids. We headed downtown to the NC Museum of Natural Science (where we had Catie’s birthday party), because I had gotten an email that they were having a special exhibit called “The World’s Largest Dinosaurs.” Sounds totally up Catie’s alley, no? And it was great.

The girls got to sit in a model of a dinosaur footprint.

And they got to dig for (fake) fossils.

It really was the perfect type of thing for Catie, even though Lucy got a little bored and whiny about it. (She was more excited about going up and down the escalators over and over.)

At one point, there was a little movie about a dinosaur, and the girls sat on the floor to watch it. Then this happened, and I damn near melted.

That kind of thing doesn’t happen often, but it’s pretty great when it does.

The kids have been with Dave the last couple days, but I get them back tonight and I’ll have them through Thanksgiving. My brother and his girlfriend are coming over from Charlotte, so I’m excited to see them.

Oh, and my cleaning ladies come today, which is my favorite thing about every other Wednesday. Having a clean house right before a holiday? Even better.

And now I’ve got to get started on all these side dishes I need to prep before tomorrow…