Eugene Kids Fun Run

Saturday, 4-30-11

FRIDAY

Friday we made a very long trip to Eugene, OR for some running events. And when I say - VERY LONG TRIP - it is an understatement. It actually would have been enjoyable if we could have stopped and shopped at some neat outlets we saw and enjoyed the scenery and quiet, but that would have meant we didn't have the kids with us. LOL!

I'm pretty sure they needed to potty every 30 minutes. And they asked if we were almost there the other 30 minutes and did not think that taking a nap was a good idea. We brought movies and I brought out a couple of new little toys about a 1/4 of the way through the trip. I was going to wait longer, but they spied them and wouldn't wait to see them. We also had lots of fun snacks. There are just times that you can't plan enough to try and make it easier.

We got to Eugene about 6 hours or so after we left our house. At that time we figured out that Zach had got a bit sick in his pants and, as Darin found out, it is no fun at all to clean up a 4 yr old. We picked up our race packets and then headed for the hotel....finally. As we get on the freeway for a mintue, Zach has to go potty NOW and we can't pull off.....another mess to clean up. :0( We get to the hotel and get unpacked and the kids want to get in the pool right a way. Zach is down there for about 30 mintues with Grandma and Papa and then he is tired and ready to come back to the room. Grandma brings him up to her room and he falls asleep right a way. We come up later to settle down for bed and bring Zach into our room. About 10 mintues later he is throwing up on the bed. Poor boy! He is not a good long distance traveler. We get everything cleaned up again and then he starts feeling better and wants to play instead of going to bed. He got progressively better and was back to himself Saturday morning. Thank you Lord!

SATURDAY

The kids race started at 8am. That is very early. Grandma & Papa came with us and we left just after 7am, after having a pretty good free breakfast at the hotel. The morning was a bit chilly, but beautiful.

The race is finally about to begin!

I must apologize that I forgot to change my camera settings. The sun came up brilliantly and totally overexposed all the pictures that my Dad took. I tried to salvage them as best as I could.

It is about to start!

We don't know it right now, but this is a bunch of ruthless kids. "Fun" was not how the race started.

Do you see the faces on these kids?? 

  Just after this Elissa went sliding on the ground along with many other kids with the ones still running just jumping over them. Elissa got up and I asked her if she was alright and she nodded, but was trying not to cry. She started running again. For the next couple of minutes I would look down at her and she looked like she was about to cry, but she ran it out and never stopped. Tough girl!

Here we are finishing the .6 race that completed Elissa's Marathon!

She made me work too. She is a fast little runner.

Look at her knees....they were pretty scraped up.

Darin took a camera on his and Zachary's race.

Darin said that he did really good and ran almost all of it. He came skipping and jumping across the finish line, so it looked like he enjoyed it. :-)

And then a little fun afterwards and trying to get all the free stuff they were handing out.

It was definitely worth the early morning wake-up.

It was a fun family morning!

We went straight back to the hotel and the kids finally got to see their cousins that came in late the night before. Then they all went straight to the pool and pretty much stayed there the rest of the day.

I never got any pool pictures.