Pick up

I picked up Gillian tonight and then we headed to John's school. When we arrived at John's school we found another parent waiting by the gym doors. But it didn't look like anyone was there. So I said to Gillian "Maybe they are in the library. Let's go over there." The library is on the other side of the school. I was planning on driving over there. Gillian said "Let's walk." We didn't walk. We ended up jogging around to the library (we beat the dad that opted to drive). John was not too happy to hear that we had to go all the way to the gym to get to our car. Gillian didn't care. She ran all the way back. In the car, John asked "Why did you decide to walk? It's too cold!" Gillian just laughed. John said "She's crazy!" It just made Gillian laugh even harder. 

Color Run 2015

For the past few years, Daddy, John, Aunt Betty, Justin and I have run the Color Run. This year Gillian joined us! She was very excited when we were at the house. 

And in the car. 

When we arrived she was very nervous and I think overwhelmed by all the people and noise. She sat in the stroller and refused to move. We had to bribe her to come out and take before pictures. 

We then moved towards the starting line. We wanted to be in the first wave of runners. So we would have the maximum amount of time to go through the race. We brought a stroller for Gillian, because we knew she wouldn't be able to run the entire 5k. Before we started Daddy had a quick pep talk with the kids. 

He let them know that John could run ahead, but we all wanted to go through the color stations together. 

The first color station was pink. Gillian was nervous, but excited that it was pink. We had her get out of the stroller and walk through the station with Daddy. The workers made sure she got a lot of pink. They paid more attention to her than Daddy (he didn't get any pink). After that she walked for a little bit. 

She walked for a little bit and Daddy carried her on his shoulders too, but she mainly stuck to her stroller. She always got out for the color stations. John, on the other hand, ran or walked the entire race. He spent the entire time with Justin. They would run ahead, but would wait for us to go together as a group through the color stations. 

After pink, we had orange, yellow and then blue. The very last station was silver shine. I got to walk with Gillian. The volunteers just loved her. They gave her high fives and they carefully doused her in the silver. She was covered in it. She just sparkled. And she was so happy. 

We rounded the corner and headed to the finish line. At the finish line we all got medals, a packet of color and a packet of shine. We all opened our packets and had a little color war. Gillian said that was her favorite part. 

It was an amazing day. Looking forward to next year!

Color Run

Saturday morning, we got up very early to get ready for the Color Run. Like last year, Gillian spent Friday night at Aunt Missy and Uncle T's house. So it was just John, Daddy and I getting ready. Daddy had cut the sleeves off of his Color Run shirt and John had to match! We also had to cut his shirt so it wasn't down to his knees. 

We arrived at Raceway Park bright and early and met Aunt Betty and Justin. The Color Run isn't timed and has a rolling start. We got in line and were part of the second group. John took off like a rocket. He is fast. And he ran in a zig zag. We followed behind and he slowed down after a little while. 

Our first color was pink! We all ran thru and everyone got some pink on them. John got a second wind and ran again. It didn't last long. But before we realized it was time for our next color: Yellow! Yellow was not as good as pink. It was basically like walking thru a big cloud of yellow smoke. None of us really got much color. But luckily we were headed to blue. One of Justin's friends was spraying blue and Justin got covered! We had a long walk from blue to purple. And yes, we were walking. But at this point last year we were all taking turns carrying John on our back. But not this year. He walked or ran the entire 5k. We got to purple and I watched a lady just stick aa-handful of purple in Aunt Betty's hair. Purple is my favorite color and I made sure I got a lot! On our way to the finish line we had to pass yellow again. So Uncle Kyle and Justin hopped the divider and headed back to get some more yellow. They attempted to do pink too, but they were stopped. 

We made it to the finish line and were given individual color packets. Daddy and I got green, John and Justin got red and Aunt Betty got orange. We opened our packets and attacked each other. Poor John couldn't open his packet, after someone helped him, he got everyone! 

The Color Run



 

Back in March, we signed up John, Daddy and I to run in the Color Run in August.  Well Saturday was the big day.  Since Gillian was not running, we asked Aunt Missy and Uncle T to take her overnight on Friday.  Gillian had her own little adventure with Aunt Missy on Saturday! 

 

We told John all about the race, and he had lots of questions.  "Are there medals? Are there going to be a lot of people there? What kinds of colors?"  Saturday morning around 5 am he woke up and came into our room.  "I had a bad dream.  Can I sleep with you?"  How can you say no to that?  He climbed into our bed.  He snuggled for a little bit, but after awhile all he did was poke Daddy or I and kick us or talk to us.  I think he was just excited about the race.  We got up and got John dressed.  When we put on his shirt, it was longer than his shorts (we had to get an adult XS for him).  Daddy and I looked at the shirt and Daddy said "We could cut it."  I said "I was thinking about pinning it up."  John says "We could tuck it in."  Smarty pants.  We opted for John's plan and tucked in his shirt. 

 

In the car, he kept asking Daddy "Are we there yet?" "I think we are going to be late." We finally pulled into the lot and saw Aunt Betty and her friend Ali. We pinned on our numbers and headed to the starting line. John was not happy about taking pictures before the race. He was very anxious to start. 

The Color Run isn't timed and has a rolling start.  After waiting our turn, we were finally at the starting line.  Once they told us to go, John went running.  We weren't expecting him to go so fast, but we were right behind him.  He ran for awhile and then slowed down.  We ended up walking until the first color station.  The first color was pink.  John put on his shades and went thru.

 

 

He had the biggest grin when he was done.  He loved it.  We ran and walked thru the rest of the colors: Blue, Yellow and finally Orange.  John had a blast getting colorful, but wasn't so happy about how long the race was.  When I asked him if he would do it again next year, he said "No.  It was tooo long!"  I'm sure we can convince him to do it again.  

 

   

Look what I can do!

This morning, John came running into our room. "Mom! Dad! Look what I can do!" And he holds up both hands and snaps. He snaps a few times. We say, that's great! He turns around and walks out of the room. Gillian, who was behind him the whole time, walks up to us and says "I no can do that!" She looked so sad and tried to climb up on our bed. Then John started calling her. And she says "I gotta go. John needs me!"

Faster than...

John told me tonight "I am faster than all the animals in the world! But you know what? There is one animal that I am not faster than. Do you know what animal? Come on, you know!" I insisted that I did not know what he was talking about. He said "Duncan. Duncan is faster than me! Duncan is so fast." I love his logic. He first says that he is faster than all the animals but contradicts himself by saying that his dog is faster than him. He also told me "I'm as strong as a lion! Well maybe a fire ant. You know why they call them fire ants? Because they are red!"

At bedtime tonight, he told me "I'm as brave as an ant. I don't like the dark and I get very scared." I explained to him that ants are very brave. They are so tiny but they still leave their house everyday to find food and shelter for their families. And that he should be proud to be brave like an ant! I hope our little talk helped him to be brave in the dark.