Cameryn with a y: Turkey Day

Since Chris and I have been traveling to different places to interview we decided we would save some money and spend Thanksgiving in Austin. We made it a fun time with a turkey trot in the morning, football/crafts in the afternoon, a great home cooked Thanksgiving meal, and a trip to the movie theaters. We know there won't be too many other Thanksgiving's like this one. Our Turkey trot was around 9:30 am. We left forty minuets before the race started thinking we would have plenty of time to get there before the race. The race was downtown, and I guess everyone made it a tradition to do a turkey trot. There were around 23,000 people. We waited in traffic for at least 20 min. trying to find a parking spot. We ended up parking a mile away and ran a pre-warm up mile before the race started. We hadn't picked up our packets but were able to pick up our number and our free turkey shirt. We hurdled across people to the starting line barely making it for the gun shot. Flustered and already fatigued, the race hadn't even started yet. My iPod was dead so I ended up listening to other people's breathing including my own. Usually, I hate listening to other people breath. It messes with my mind, and since I am super competitive I have to be in front, this only makes me compete harder, especially when I can hear someone next to me. Instead of a normal 5k run it was a 5 mile. I guess they thought more people would go for seconds in their much awaited turkey meal this year. Runners were wearing turkey costumes and turkey hats. I enjoyed watching the people run with strollers and their dogs. There were so many people I felt like I was dodging in and out trying not to knock into someone. It reminded me of the Livestrong Marathon where Chris and I were cutting it close to the starting time. We had to run a mile before the race started because we forgot to drop off our bags, so we ended up running all the way to our cars. I guess that's just how we roll.

We cooked a fast but delicious thanksgiving meal. We did the essentials, turkey (crock pot was not bad I might say) canned cranberries, gravy, mash potatoes, green beans, and yams. Yams were essential, those are my favorite. Neither of us like stuffing so we bagged it. Chris did want a pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, I am not a huge pie eater so Chris has this big pie to himself. It takes up much of the room in our fridge.

Later that night we went to a movie, Silverlining Playbook. We thought hey, why not, we are here with no kids, let's go to a movie. Not many people in the theatre, but it was a good movie and we were happy to top off Thanksgiving Day with a good movie.

I had to teach Relief Society today. Since most of the teachers would be out of town, I thought that not many people would show up. I was wrong! Try double what we normally have. I planned this whole lesson and only got about a quarter through. It was a good experience, but I am not sure why I was chosen to speak. I thought maybe someone who was a little bit older would have been a better choice. My lesson was on Consider The Blessings By President Monson, so I guess I had to consider this a blessing!

I am almost done getting the Smith's their holiday presents this year at Texas Running Company! My manager really doesn't mind what I get for the family. He just wants me to hold off on buying it until it gets closer to when I leave. So funny story of the week, a guy wanted to try on the new Newton's we have in the store. He was an 8.5 and not too many men have that size of feet, so I went in the back and found one pair. I opened it up as I was trying to find him. Guess what was inside...CRICKETS! There were about 10 of them dead in the shoes and next to them. I made David my coworker clean them out because I hate crickets.

Chris and I visited Charlottesville and DC last week. It was good to see my cousin Erin and her boys. We played and had dinner with them. They were kind enough to have us for two nights. We explored Charlottesville and I have to admit it is beautiful there! I have never seen trees like that. They glow with all the colors. We were in DC with all the historical monuments, and instead of saying Chris take a picture with me and Lincoln, I would say Chris take a picture of me with all these trees in the background. So sorry there is a lot of pictures of trees and of monuments with the trees. Chris and I went to Monticello where Jefferson lived. We took a tour around, and then we made our way up to the orchard. We had the sweetest apples we have ever tasted. We bought at least 5 and that was our breakfast for the next couple of days. The next day we rented a car and drove to DC which is about a 2 hour drive. I was exhausted from the day before (we had to get up at 4am to make our flight) and I cannot sleep on planes, so Chris drove. We made it to DC where we spent most of the day exploring walking around and seeing the monuments. We were only able to go to the American Revolution Museum for about an hour we didn't know they closed at 5! That is definitely a couple of days kind of trip.

Chris had his interview at UVA, unfortunately the location is better than the residency program. Although I loved the small home town feel of Charlottesville we may still keep them on our list. We have a lot of thinking to do of where we should rank all of these places.

This next week I get to go with Chris to Oregon. He goes to St Louis and is meeting me in Oregon. I get to have a daddy daughter date with my dad, so I'm excited to see him.

Love you all, have a great week!

Cameryn

(pictures are below)