At the Races

We spent this week at the races.  First up was the Raingutter Regatta at our local cub scout pack meeting.  I'm almost old enough to be a cub scout.  But mom gets to work with the cub scouts now and so she invited us to race in the regatta in the "friends and family" bracket.  Dad helped us build our boats, we decorated them, and dad came along to help and watch.  Here I am racing my boat.  

Here's Sam racing.  We had one other friend in our bracket.  He was fun to race with.  

I won first place and Sam won second place.  I also got an award for "best sail".  We had so much fun!!  We can't wait to be cub scouts!

Then on Saturday it was the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival 1 Mile Kids Run.  The race was happening rain or shine, and sure enough it was a nice rainy day.  We actually quite enjoyed running in the rain.  Here we are getting ready for the start.

We are about the second and a half row back - this is just as the gun is going off.

And we're off.  Sam is hidden behind that parent's arm.

Here's Sam running hard.

Here's a quick video of me running past.

Here I am at the finish.  I finished 24th overall.  My mile time was 8:35.

And here's Sam finishing - see him down there behind the bigger kids.  He finished 35th at 9:22 for a mile.

Interesting story about Sam's run - he decided to stop and take a water break part way through the race. He stood in line, politely let other kids go first, and then got his water, carefully tossed it in the garbage and then started running again.

There were just under 200 kids running and we were really really happy with how we ran.  

Sam ended up finishing first in his age division.  He was about 40 seconds faster than the next kid in his division - and that was with his water stop.

I finished 4th in my division.  We were so happy - our first big road race and we did so well.  Even on a nice rainy day!  And we had sooooo much fun.  We're ready to find a local kid's track club and start racing more.  

We had some errands to run after the race and we decided to stop at a "new" sporting goods/outdoor store.  It had been open for quite awhile but we had never stopped to look around.  They had lots of fun things to see and do.  First in - this giant wooden moose.  I had to stop for a quick picture.

This big giant grizzly bear was also waiting to stay hi.  (Dad is holding me up in the air, in case you think that this is just a little bear.)

There were also these cool picture areas with electronic animals that you could move the boxes around and the animals appeared on the screen, even though we couldn't see them.

Here I am with a big old bass.

 And here's Sam up in the air with the bear.  Bears sure are big!

Finally for this week - I present to you a video of me and my animals.  Enjoy!

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - We were picking up our race packets on Friday night and reviewing our race course with mom.  We found the "Art City Donuts" truck parked just along what would become our race course the next morning.  Mom had been dying to try these donuts.  So after we finished previewing the course, we went right back and had ourselves a donut dinner - oh my!  OH MY!  These were the ultimate in donuts!  So light and airy and yummy and delicious!  

We shared a bowl of Raspberry Crumble donuts.  Oh my!  We loved them!  So much for our dinner, but sooooo worth it!

We also got to see the movie "Bears" this weekend.  It was fabulous.  Isn't it funny that we had already planned to have salmon for dinner that night.  It was a super great movie!

All in all - we had an amazing week!  Sam out - until next week.