Hi friends! I’m blogging from my bed in California now! I am officially home for Thanksgiving!

I wanted to pop in and share a little bit from my very last day in St. Louis.

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What a freaking goof.

The cold came in Friday night, so I bundled up for Crossfit. My last one! Thankfully, the gym is heated. For the workout, we worked on hang cleans. The WOD was killer on the shoulders.

10 rounds:

10 push press (65 lb)

10 UNBROKEN double unders

10 weighted sit ups (25 lb)

I knew right away the push presses would be the hard part of this since 65 is a little heavy for me for a WOD. It was. Ouch. For the double unders, if they were broken (aka you messed up) you had to start over. Surprisingly, I only did this one set. It was a good workout to end on, and I said my goodbyes.

I went straight from Crossfit to The Mud House, a coffeeshop I visited once before, for some food and study time.

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Kombucha and cheddar chive grits. Why are grits more of a thing in California??

The place was absolutely packed for brunch, but I was able to snag a spot at the counter. But the line was smooched up against the counter, so I felt especially awkward pulling up my anthrax research for microbio.

I didn’t do too much that afternoon other than squeeze in some last kittie snuggles.

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Around dinnertime, I bundled up for one final outing.

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Me and a couple of zoo buddies went to Seoul Taco in the loop. I had my last chocolate milk stout.

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Plus a bowl with chicken and a very jiggly egg.

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Next was our main event on the agenda, visiting Garden Glow at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It was a big light display set up in the gardens, and I was really excited to see it! With lows in the 20s and wind, I was nervous for the weather. I finally made use of my winter coat, and the temperatures were only low 40s so it wasn’t too bad! Check out the lights though:

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I had such a great time, and it was a great way to welcome the holiday season.

Afterwards, we stopped at The Cup in Central West End to pick up cupcakes. They had 3 GF options! I got a chocolate cupcake with vanilla ice cream and it was SUPER delicious and fudgy.

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We ate these while watching Insidious 2 back at my place, and Scooby kept us company (and Yoyo wandered around making sure to creak every floorboard in the dark old house!)

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And then it was time to say goodbye. I’m really going to miss these people. It’s amazing the relationships you can form in 3 short months. I can’t bear to get to sappy here, but I’ll leave it by saying it’s not goodbye forever, because I WILL come visit.

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Sunday morning I woke up to this:

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29, feels like 25. Yeah. I decided my run could wait until the “feels like” was at least above freezing. What did I do instead?

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Finally I got out the door and did my normal 3 mile route. I had planned on running in Forest Park but didn’t want to spend the time driving there.

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And then finally I said goodbye.

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But with every goodbye comes a hello.

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Oh, and I had my first cranberry orange bread of the season. This had warm spices which made it feel extra holiday-y.

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As hard as it is to leave, I try to look forward as much as possible, because I’ve enjoyed my life at every stage lately and know that I will be just fine. (That doesn’t mean leaving people in the past though!)

How do you say goodbye?