A Good Friday

Friday morning I dropped Little Man for his field trip to the pumpkin farm. He was so excited!! Maybe more excited to ride the big school bus than to actually go to the pumpkin farm. As we were waiting for everyone to arrive, I started to see that pretty much every kid was accompanied by their Mom. It wasn't required that parents chaperone but I was starting to feel a little bad that I hadn't volunteered. At the same time I knew that Little Man would be more independent and more likely to eat his lunch if I wasn't there. And this was going to be my only chance to go for a long run without any time pressure. He was perfectly happy to go off without me and soon enough has happily on his way.

I drove over to Busse Woods in Elk Grove Village planning to run their 7.7 mile trail. I had walked the whole thing years ago when Little Reader was still in a stroller. Today was much colder 48 when I arrived but with the leaves changing it was really pretty. At one point I misunderstood the trail markers and ended up going the wrong way. I thought the trail would join up with the main trail, but it never did so I had to turn around and go back the way I came. In the end I ran 9.3 miles (with .1 mi intervals of walking every .75 miles). I managed it in an hour an half. I checked the results from last year's Hot Chocolate and that's about average for my age group so I feel a lot more confident about the race, knowing I can do it.

I ran the whole thing in a sweatshirt and shorts and while I warmed up some as I ran I definitely need to get some cool weather running gear.

After stretching out and warming up I went to IKEA for lunch and to take advantage of being able to be there without kids. They already have their Christmas section set up and I saw the greatest little "why didn't anyone think of that before" item? Those silver ornament hangers have always bugged me, these green ones are great.  I don't know how well they work since I haven't used them yet - obviously - but I wanted to buy them now in case I don't make it back to IKEA before Christmas.  I love/hate that big blue box. 


I picked up Little Man and he had had a great time on his field trip. A lot of the kids had fallen asleep on the ride home and looked a little groggy. Little Man came off the bus with a huge smile on his face. He had a pumpkin and a caramel apple and was in a hurry to get home to eat his apple. He told me all about the different things they did, and proudly said that he ate his lunch. He managed to bite all the caramel off his apple and only eat a tiny bit of apple.


After school we took his sisters to drive around and Hobgoblin their friends. We've been doing it for about 3 years now and they love it. If you aren't familiar with the Hobgoblin it's kind of a Halloween Secret Santa. You drop off Halloween goodies at 6 friends houses and then they are supposed to pay it forward to six other people and the chain continues til Halloween. You post the sign in your window so people know you've been "booed". They had a lot of fun picking out goodies to put in our bags (vampire teeth, Halloween pencil and eraser, glow sticks, and a couple of pieces of candy). Since it's supposed to delivered secretly, I drove them around and they rang the bell and ran back to the car to try to get away before their friend saw them (which caused lots of giggles).

My husband made it home for dinner after having business dinners a couple of nights this week. Little Man enjoyed telling everyone about his field trip. He got the new iPhone and we were all having fun coming up with silly questions for Siri.

Ok, on the surface this may not seem like a post that would go with my theme, but really it was a good day of managing to provide fun times for each of the kids, a relaxing evening with my husband and still a good day for me. See? Balance.