Weirdly I love Monday mornings, I love getting to get back to routine and do school with the kiddos. This week we are starting Christmas school.

We honestly don’t have a lot going on otherwise since we are still a little sick, not venturing out and we have a winter storm approaching.

We did our usual, reading, writing, math, literature and lots of stories.

Overall it was a nice quiet day but we are all looking forward to getting better and getting back to normal life.

What does your week look like?

We still don’t have a lot going on in our lives just hanging out, recovering and getting things done as we have energy.

I think this one is sooooo cute.

The kids love this one, and it’s easy. I think one of the reasons I love Elf on the Shelf is that we keep it pretty simple. If we are tired or just not feeling creative we just move where they are and the kids like finding them regardless.

We spent some time setting up the kids’ room for Christmas. I took pictures of their trees that we decorated but I should take photos of the rest of their rooms as I think there will big changes in the next year.

We also have a “kids” tree in our play loft that we all decorate together. The idea of this tree is that all the decorations aren’t breakable so the kids can play with them. This way they can have a tree they can play with and then know they aren’t allowed to touch out live tree that we have in the living room with all of our spacial decorations.

I extra love this tree because we had a kids tree growing up and my mom handed the the decorations down to us. A lot of the wood ornaments were cut by my dad and painted my either my mom or grandmother. I remember putting that plastic candy garland up on the tree growing up and I love that my kids getting to do it now too. We let them put it all up and not worry about things being “perfect”.

Cory was able to finish up the lights outside and we enjoyed some time outside playing in the backyard and driveway. Hoping that vitamin D is helping us.

We spent the rest of the day playing, resting and returning some library books.

I think this type of day will be on repeat until we are feeling better and back to real life, hopefully early next week.

Hoping PT and light cardio make a comeback tomorrow.

The Elf shenanigans are in full swing at our house and I love it.

Today they took a plain roll of paper, drew a string of lights on it and left our dot markers out. The kids had fun coloring on it all day.

We spent some time putting up our Christmas lights, I got these new porch trees this year and love them!

We are still isolating at home but feeling grateful that we have enough energy to get a few things done. Normally we are putting our main/real tree up this weekend but we can’t venture out to get it. We had planned to get a permit and go cut down our own this year but likely won’t now…maybe next year.

In our Thanksgiving box my parents gifted us a Bluey card game. They know how much we love Bluey and had planned on playing it all together after Thanksgiving. Even though we would have much rather been together it was still so fun.

Obviously Cannon (and Emerald) loved it. I will LINK it here in case you need it too, great gift or stocking stuffer.

We decided to drive around a bit to see some Christmas lights as an excuse to get out of the house. I love how some people go all out!

Do you go all out on Christmas decorations? Out of 10 I think we are about a 7 or 8 indoors and a 4 outside.

The day before Thanksgiving I was not yet sick so I went out on a run when the sun was out.

It was so so nice to run outside on our local trails.

The rest of the day was spent at home with these two cuties.

They were pretty sick, but still in good spirits, even sick days are fun with these two. We watched lots of movies, played games and read books.

Later in the day I made a little time for my PT, stretching and rolling. Doing all the things even when I don’t want to.

On Thanksgiving we were all officially sick, at least we all get to be sick and recover together.

We still baked pies, both dutch apple and pumpkin pie. We all worked together, we love cooking with the kids.

We made thankful crafts, I love hand print turkeys so much.

I love that both kids are into crafts now!

We didn’t get to go to our planned family dinner but we did get a thanksgiving to go box from my mom to take home with (the best) turkey and all the trimmings.

No running for me in the last couple days as I was advised to avoid exercise so all my energy could go to recovery. I plan to start including some PT and easy spinning on my indoor bike while I continue to recover.

Please tell me how your holiday was.

Skipping Thanksgiving has begun to feel like a tradition in itself now. In 2019 we had a stomach bug so we stayed home and ate saltines instead of turkey.

In 2020 we had a full thanksgiving meal by ourselves because of the pandemic. Last year we actually got to be with family and it was amazing.

This year we were planning on running a Turkey Trot and do family dinner at my parent’s house. We won’t be doing either since Cannon has gotten really sick and it is starting to hit the rest of us =(

This is what the kids looked like the last time we did an official turkey trot in 2018.

Instead of going on the playdates we had planned we stayed home, watched movies and built legos. Not what we want but still being together is always good.

Resting and taking in lots of fluids.

I think we should get a do-over Thanksgiving sometime, I also hope that we don’t have to cancel too many plans next week!

Started off the day with a short treadmill run to shake out the legs and some PT.

We are excited that it’s Thanksgiving break and we get to see our friends more!

I can’t believe how much snow we still have.

We also spent all morning stocking up on groceries for the week as well as finishing up our ski gear purchases.

All four of us got ski helmets, safety first! The kids got bolle helmets.

Cory and I got THESE spy+ helmets.

I really want to get up to Keystone before Christmas so we can see the resort decorated for the holidays!

Are you a fan of winter? I am really trying to be!

It felt very good to be back to a Sunday long run. My “long run” is only 6 miles as of now but it sets the stage for what feels like real long runs. To me runs start to seem longish at 8 miles + and anything over 10 definitely qualifies. Distance is all relative this is just how it feels to me.

I had oatmeal and water before my run and it felt like the good old days. I ran on the treadmill to avoid icy streets and snowy trails, but it was really a mental challenge to run 6 miles on the treadmill. I need to work on my treadmill mental strength since we are just starting winter here.

After my run we took the kids to the pool, we spend the summer living at our neighborhood pool but this indoor pool is good substitute during the winter.

We all enjoyed the hot tub at the end. Being at this pool after a “long run” reminds me of when Cannon was a baby and I was training for an ultra. I would always do my long runs on Sunday morning then Cannon had infant swim lessons in the afternoon. My legs were always so trashed for those lessons but I swear getting in the pool and moving around really help with my recovery for that training cycle!

What are some of your favorite recovery methods?

What do you consider a “long run”?