Today We Are Very Grateful

Weeks before my surgery, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving at our house as we were not sure how well I would be and if ready for long travel. It turns out that my dad had to go to Finland for work this week leaving mom on her own. So it was a perfect plan to have her over with my sister.

As you can see, I am very alive and well and the reason we all are most grateful today. Quite a change from the previous pictures, eh?

I will get back to continuing the story and explanation of the surgery hopefully tomorrow. A brief update for now is that at my checkup in Portland on Nov 5th, I was given medical approval to walk the Seattle half marathon this Sunday. (sorry if I am repeating info from a previous post) With the extremely short training time, I got to it right away and the day after my friend's memorial on the 7th, I walked 48 miles over the next 8 days. I tapered off to shorter walks last week and this week to rest up for the event this weekend. Sunday we did our last long training session of 8 miles and then I have been doing short incline and hill training everyday since.

Now it is just a matter of being able to get up before the crack of dawn on Sunday and stay awake for our 4 hour journey in the rainy and cold PNW.

Saturday I will be easing back as we need to go to the expo and then we are taking our mom to the christmas lights at the botanical garden.

Hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving!