Thanksgiving Day 2012

So Thanksgiving Day 2012 is wrapping up and it was a good day.

It started with getting up at 5:15 for my 1st 5K, or at least that was the plan.  In reality I woke up around 2 and never really did get back to sleep, just dozed on and off until around 5.  In getting out the door, I got distracted for a little bit by the Black Friday ads in the paper and forgot the snacks I had pre-prepped the night before.

Before the start of the race, obviously

I got there with time to spare and had about 20 minutes to stand around and wait.  I did do a little stretching out during this time.  I did start near the front of the race, but mostly because I just didn't want to have go any extra distance than necessarily.  I just let people pass me by and tried not to worry or think about it much.

From the very start of the race

I did pretty good and just doing the pace that worked for me.  It really did seem like absolutely everyone was passing me.  I did keep looking back occasionally and there was always at least someone behind me.  I walked for 90% of the race.  I jogged at the very beginning, at the very end and at most every intersection.

My plantar fasciitis in my right foot started hurting nearly immediately, but I'm relatively used to this and can tune it out reasonly well. By around 2/3 of the way through it, my plantar fasciitis was in full blown yell and my right hip was now grumpy (probably from the slight limp for my right heel).  I just focused on my music and staying ahead of at least the one person who I knew was behind me.

A little more than 1/10 of mile before the finish

My goals going into the race was to finish it and preferably finish somewhere before last.  I am VERY happy to say I achieved both goals.  I finished with a time of 1 hour 2 minutes and 10 seconds, and I finished ahead of at least 2 other people.  :-)

So then we came home and we enjoyed watching the parade which we had set to record.  I also looked through all the Black Friday ads during this.  We then went out to Golden Corral for a very wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  I had all my favorites and left very satisfied.  We then came home and watched the National Dog Show that we had recorded earlier in the day.

I then went out to Walmart for the main Black Friday deals I was interested in.  On one hand I don't really like the trend of starting Black Friday on Thanksgiving.  On the other hand, I'm happy to have my main shopping thing for the weekend done already.  I do have a few things I'll go out for tomorrow, but they aren't urgent or high demand items I don't think.

I got the deals I was after.  Two additional mini-crockpots for only $3.88 each so now both mom can make our meals easily at the same time.  :-D  Plus we now have a back-up and an extra-liner for only $8.  :-)  I also got a really great deal on some legos and pjs and bras.

And despite it making my foot and hip flair up again (hate Walmart floors), I did have a good time.  I was trying to decide between waiting at the crocks or the legos for the magic 8 pm hour when things could be grabbed.  I had somewhat settled on the legos because there were less of those.  I called a friend to chat and pass the time.  The nice lady who I had chatted with some and was there with her 3 kids heard my quandry over the 2 items.  She offered to grab me one of the legos and meet me over by where I was getting the crocks.  And the crocks ended up with a lot of people at them by the time the magic hour hit, so I'm very glad with how it turned out.

It was just overall a good day.  I hope and pray that everyone else had a good Thanksgiving too.

Dollywood Gospel Fest 2012

So I am finally recovered enough from a month at Dollywood enough to download all the photos and videos.  So here are the ones from the gospel festival itself.

These first two are of what I have always said are my favorite gospel group: The Ball Brothers.

Now these year only the two in the center of the photo below are from the original brothers.  And their overall sound is actually better now, I think, with the replacement of two of the brothers.

And they are definitely still either 1st or 2nd on my list of favorite gospel groups.

But this man, Josh Singletary, in the group Tribute Quartet, is why they are are now only 1st or 2nd instead of just 1st.

So I have lots of videos of them and mostly of him.

But there are a couple of the whole group...

This is the Kingdom Heirs, Dollywood's gospel quartet that is always there. This number almost always get the audience standing.

So I still have a whole bunch of photos to go through and will post more of them on another day, but this is what I have of the actual gospel festival part.  We had a good time even though it kind of tired us out, but we have a whole year to recover before we do it again and by then we might both be at our goal/target weight.  :-)