5K Color Run

After inspiration from Bruce's brother and sister in law, we both decided to sign up for a 5K color run.  This was like no other run that I have participated in (granted it is only my 3rd 5K ever).  I am not much of a runner - sure I've run a few races, but I don't particularly enjoy running, and I am completely out of shape.  This race motivated me to do some running (although not as much as I really should), so I did do some training.  

On July 12, we headed up to Allentown to participate in this color run.  It took us a while to find the stadium where the event was taking place. A color festival was going on, and I wanted to spend some time enjoying the atmosphere, yet alone being worried that we wouldn't be able to pick up our event packet in enough time.  We did arrive 30 minutes before the start of the event, and in hindsight, it ended up being a good thing.  The festival wasn't much to awe at.  Instead of being the carnival-like attraction I was expecting, it was full of crowds of people drinking, colored powder for air, and loud headbanging music with a DJ who was just plain annoying.  The 30 minutes prior to race time was long enough.  Besides that, my children are not crowd people, so their excitement about the event was completely nil. 

 Here is our before picture featuring clean and non sweaty bodies.  

I tried to get a picture of the colored powder people were pouring everywhere, but the air was so full of dust, I really didn't know what I was taking a picture of.  

 With a handful of chips and a bowlful of snacks, the kids were ready to start the race.  Next time, I might just make Bruce push me along in the stroller too - it is certainly easier for me that way.  I will say that the kids were not thrilled by the prospect of us dressing up with color.  Both children cried relentlessly when Bruce and I gently poured some color on ourselves.  Zaby had a terrified expression on his face as if we were seriously hurting each other by this colored powder.

Here we are all guzzied up and ready to race.

When the race began, there were so many people packed at the start line, it made it nearly impossible to get going at all, especially not with a double jogging stroller.  We probably spent the first quarter of a mile of the race trying to maneuver around the walkers, and get to a point where we could work up to the resemblance of a jog.  As mentioned before, this was not like any race I've ever an in because in fact, it wasn't a race at all.  Many people were not in any hurry to start or finish.  Very few people actually jogged, and even fewer actually finished the entire race.  We ran through a parking lot in which the trail was looped around, so the majority of the people just cut through the cones instead of running the full track.  I am proud to say that I ran the entire race (save it be the first quarter mile trying to get through a literal wall of people, and one slight hill).  They didn't have any mile markers, so I really had no idea when I was near the end of the race.  I didn't think I was going to make it, and suddenly I was there at the end with a new spout of color thrown at me.  I have no idea how well I did because they didn't track time.  If I were interested in a competitive race, this color run was not the one to complete.  But it was fun nonetheless.

Here is the crew hot and sweaty and covered with colored powder at the end of the race.  The race environment after I finished was louder and more boisterous than the before party.  Another wave of night runners were gearing up to start their section of the race.  During our cool down, Zaby saw this air blown bobble thing and was completely fascinated. Every time the blue thing moved its arm, Zaby waved and said, "Hi," over and over again.  It was the cutest thing!

We sat on the lawn afterward to stretch, and eat dinner.  I wanted a picture that would show the color I had on me.  Eliza volunteered to take it, and this rather scary looking person is what she came up with.

 This close up of Bruce that I took is much more becoming.

 This is a better one of me - at least I don't look quite as demonic.  

 Eliza took one more of us stretching on the lawn before the novelty of a wide open space set in for her, and the kids were off running around.

The biggest accomplishment is that I finished the race, and I wasn't even sore afterwards.  When you haven't run in a long time, even a simple 5K sounds daunting.  I wish I could say that I kept up my running schedule, but I haven't - I moved on to water walking instead.  

Eliza's 3rd Birthday

 It's completely hard to believe that my little girl just turned 3.  I swear I was just bringing her home from the hospital last month.  But 3 she is, and a wonderful 3 year old to boot.

As Eliza exited her bedroom, we greeted her with the Happy Birthday song.  The first words Eliza uttered were, "Where's my present?  I want to help wrap them."  I just had to chuckle at her excitement - the girl loves presents.  She often carries some of her things around in gift bags and wants me to "open" them.  Every day, she gives me something that she likes and says it is my present.  Her love language must be gift giving and gift receiving.  After a breakfast favorite of chocolate chip pancakes, Eliza could hardly contain her excitement.  She voted to open gifts immediately after breakfast, and since we thought she might want to spend the day playing with her new toys, we consented.

We had three presents for her to open.  After seeing the packages, and with a cute little smile on her face, she said, "I want more presents - put them in lots of bags."  So, when Eliza wasn't looking, Bruce divided up her gifts into twice as many bags to make the birthday princess happy. As evidenced by the smile on her face, she was happy - her presents were pink and yellow, her favorite colors.

Watching children open gifts is one of the best things in the world. The expression on her face was one of pure joy. She showed excitement and love for every single present. 

Bruce and I gave her a smart play pad, a set of Sesame Street books, and a Dora tricycle.  She got a Dora outfit, movie, and box of Dora fruit snacks from Grandma Richards, and a Dora hairbrush and Dora stickers from Zabien.  

After presents, we went outside for her to try out her new bike. She did pretty well for her first time, I hope that she will learn how to pedal and steer by the end of the summer. It was a bit of a rainy day, so she spent most of the afternoon reading her new Sesame Street books, playing with her smart pad, and watching her new Dora movie she got from grandma.

After she rode around outside for a while, the neighbor Brandon came over to see if she wanted to play.  Normally, Eliza is pretty quiet around Brandon; she will play with him, but isn't one to say much.  However, she was so excited about her birthday and her presents, that she talked his ear off for 20 minutes straight.  She told him all about each one of her presents, and even brought him inside to show him each one of her new books (they came in a set of 18).  I'm happy that she was so excited about her presents.

(In this picture, she is telling Brandon all about her presents, even though they are not currently looking at them)

Later, her friend, Ally, came over for dinner.  After a quick family home evening lesson, they went outside to play in the pool. Giggles and squeals permeated the air making it evident that this was the best activity.

Love this photo - she's got the best facial expression

What a silly dad - that slide looks a bit small

 When it started raining steadily again, we decided to go inside and have birthday cake. If her presents weren't evidence enough that she likes Dora, perhaps her cake is.

I am not a cake decorator by any means, but I gave it my best shot with a butter knife. Buying the Wilton frosting colors from Joann's certainly helped with getting the right colors.  I checked the cake pan out from the library.  Who knew that was a good place to get a hold of a variety of cake pans.  She was a little hesitant to eat the cake; I guess she didn't want to hurt Dora. She told me that it was a silly cake, and she didn't want to eat her eyes or mouth, only the backpack.

Unfortunately, my camera died during the middle of the Happy Birthday song - just know that she blew the candle out on the first try.  (I think this was the first year she was successful at that.)

Dear Eliza,

You are a beautiful, precious girl.  You are so smart and inquisitive.  You are bright and learn so quickly.  You are a great helper to your mom, and an even better big sister.  Zaby is your best friend, and you are quick to share with him and include him in your activities and pursuits.  You are silly, creative, talented, a great communicator, and you love juice.  You love to help mom make dinner, play the piano, make up songs, and read books.  I can't believe how much you have grown up, but I want you to know above all that mommy and daddy love you!!

Happy 4th of July

What better way to celebrate the birth of our nation, than to spend the afternoon at Valley Forge.  We participated in a variety of carnival like activities - which were appropriate for all ages.  All the planned activities were designed to help prepare us to enlist in the continental army and fight for our freedom.

We started out the morning, by testing out our strength to see if we could ring the liberty bell.

Eliza started us off with her mighty strength. 

I gave it a shot, but I wasn't very good - the mallet is heavier than I expected. 

Zaby desperately wanted to try - he did awesome. 

The he-man of us all still didn't quite make it to the top, but if we add all of our strength together, we rang the liberty bell.  In honor of our efforts, we got to done these patriotic leas.  We were happy to have my sister here visiting with us for an entire month. 

 

After a quick bite to eat, we hurried over to the cavalry where our children enlisted in the continental army.

 After being handed our weapons,  

 and taught how to stand in formation

 how to appropriately salute and stand at attention

 and how to march in a straight line, 

 We were ready for battle!!  Zaby seemed to think that our weapons were best suited for sword fighting.

Unfortunately before we completed our march to victory, Eliza and Zaby deserted the army. Running the opposite direction, they traded their wooden guns in for a fireman's hat.

Zaby was so comfortable in the big firetruck, it was quite a struggle to get him out.

But eventually we succeeded and moved on to the next activity.  

The kids might not have deserted the army if we went through the proper training first. (We were given a list of activities to do to complete our continental army training.  However, we accidentally went through the stations backwards).  We made it to the clothing station which provided us all with the appropriate attire to wear.  First Eliza, dressed and ready, stood at attention. 

                                      Then the handsome soldier stepped up to accept the challenge.

 Soon we were all dressed and ready for battle to defend our country.

 Next step, was to learn how to march to the beat of our own drum.  The kids each took a turn playing a different marching tune.  I was very impressed with Zaby's sense of rhythm.  He took to this drum naturally, while marching in place nonetheless.

 Eliza was next in line to beat her own drum. 

 After our music adventure, we took a small break from our army preparations to make a fingerprint flag.

 With our flags complete, and a patriotic sucker to appease the children, we got right back to work building us some army barracks.  We carefully chose our equipment...

 worked together to build the walls... 

 soon, the barracks were ready for habitation. 

 

 As you can tell from this pictures, both Zaby and Eliza certainly enjoyed their suckers. 

Eliza participated in the bean bag toss using fire cakes.  These were mixtures of flour, water, and baking powder that were cooked at such high temperatures, they were hard as rocks.  Apparently, they were a popular food during the colonial time.  Although she didn't actually get any fire cakes through the hole, she still reaped the benefits of a prized pencil.

 

By this time in the afternoon, the kids were quickly wearing down.  After a quick lesson in water carrying, we ended our visit to Valley Forge with a canon firing demonstration. 

 

 The volunteers at Valley Forge carefully made their preparations.  We watched in anticipation, despite Zaby's readiness for a nap.

 Finally the moment had come...

 Ready, Aim, Fire 

Sorry that the picture is blurry - the blast was louder than expected.  It made my sister, who was taking the picture, jump at just the right moment.

By the end of our time at Valley Forge, I believe I can safely say that my children had a lot of fun. Before the end of the day, Thomas Jefferson read aloud the Declaration of Independence, and then we headed home for a nap.  

Later that evening, we headed up to Quakertown to enjoy the fireworks.

And enjoy them we did.  Eliza loved the BIG red and purple ones.  Zaby loved all of them - he was captivated by every single one.  I've never seen him sit so still.  With each firework, his eyes got wide with excitement, he pointed up at the sky, and exclaimed in his cute little voice, "Boom, Boom Boom!"

I'm grateful for those who risked their lives so that I can enjoy the freedoms that I have, and be able to celebrate this holiday with the family I love.

Happy Independence Day!