The Marathon

The first weekend in December turned out to be a crazy one in Dallas.  We had a HUGE ice storm.  When Chris and I were talking about him running a marathon we were deciding between the White Rock in Dallas and the Bryan College Station Marathon down at A&M.  We decided that the one down in A&M would be better because there would be a greater chance for warmer weather (sometimes the Dallas marathon is freezing and sometimes it is pretty nice).  And the BCS one was smaller so it would be easier for the kids and I to find him out on the course. Also, it would be a fun getaway for the family.  We were supposed to leave Friday after school but all the news was reporting ice to hit Dallas pretty hard on Thursday evening so we made the decision to get out of here before that happened so we wouldn't end up stuck.  Good thing we did because the entire city was shut down - AND we didn't have any electricity from early Friday morning until Saturday evening around 5!

A few random pics before the weekend in College Station

P was so proud of the snowmen we built.  Couldn't you just squeeze him?!

 How our living room looks nowadays

 We had planned stuff to do for a day- we pretty much did everything we had planned on Friday and had to come up with something for Saturday.  The kids spent a great deal of time jumping between the beds.  Over and over...and over and over.  Elliott is nuts

 Look at the air elliott has in the background jumping off the bed.  P is acting timid

 Berkley our resident silly party animal always turns everything into an opportunity for her crazy dance moves.

I have run a few 1/2 marathons in my day and always enjoyed seeing the kids and dads/moms out with signs to cheer on their runner.  I wanted to have the kids out there in a couple places on the course but a combination of my map reading skills and roads shut down we were only able to find him out there once.  

Berks sign says Run Daddy Run and E's says My Dad is Faster than yours

This was at mile 22 (I think) he was still in good spirits and had ice crystals forming on his hat.  It was SUPER cold!

Us at the finish line- we managed to miss him finishing with our stop at Starbucks and trek through the parking lot.

So proud of him! It was a lot of work and he did a great job!

 

All the race stuff for Chris was Sunday- flashing back to Friday night-- we took the kids to Santa Land which is one of our favorite things at Christmas in College Station. I think our last year of school we discovered the hayride and lights- we took Elliott and Berk back when I was pregnant with Patton- it was SUPER DUPER cold.  We decided to go before dinner so we could hopefully beat the rush- there was one year we tried to go (I was pregnant with Berk and E was about 2 1/2 and the cars were so backed up we didn't do it.) The mistake this time was going before feeding Berkley's belly gremlin.  She was too hungry to hang out by the fire, watch the band, go in the little shops.  SO we mostly just did the hayride and bailed.

 This tunnel is at the beginning and one of my favorite parts

 All of us in the little town where the attitudes were falling apart

 I love sleeping pics

 I don't know what in the world Elliott was doing here

 Saturday morning we woke up bright and early for the kids to do their marathon- 1.2 miles  Berk stretching out before hers

 These are a little out of order- all the kids at the finish.  They were all supposed to run in different age categories- but being that it was SO COLD (have I mentioned that before) they said if you were there to run another category you could run with your little siblings.  So that made it better :-)

 Berk and I finishing up- I had to prod her along at the end :)

 Sat night they were having a little winter festival with a bounce house, train, petting zoo and synthetic ice skating- it was cold enough that they could have thrown down a real ice rink if they had wanted to! Patton was not impressed

 

A typical sleeping situation with our kids