4th of July

Some guys from our neighborhood always purchase big, illegal fireworks and set them off on July 3rd on the street behind us.  Last year we went and watched them with the neighbors and it was really fun.  This year we made our way over there and were only there for a few minutes when a lit box was blown over and it shot out into the crowd in this picture below.  The huge stack of fireworks was 10-20 feet away from where it hit.  It could've been pretty disastrous.  As it was, nobody was hurt, though one flame flew past us and hit the chair of a friend and singed some of her hair.  It was scary.  I had Kaden on my lap and I was up and headed out as soon as I felt we were in danger.  But my other three kids had scattered with friends.  The neighbors decided it was too windy to be safe (obviously) and postponed the rest of them for the 5th.  We are rethinking attending and might just watch from our backyard from now on.  There's a reason this are illegal. 

Bright and early on the 4th, Kylee, Dylan and I headed out to run the 5K.  We picked up Jen and Averi on our way.  Both kids had wanted to run it.  Kylee ran last year but the age groups were 0-11, and 12+ so she just missed being in the kids.  This year as we were waiting to start, they announced that they changed the age groups to 0-13, 14-29 and 30+.  That changed things for both kids!  Dylan thought he would be the oldest in his group.  Kylee thought she would be with all the adults. 

Kylee and Averi ran a strong race with Kylee sprinting ahead (per the usual) at the end.  Jen was with me for less than a mile and then she went ahead- she did awesome!  And Dylan got a sideache really close to the beginning and just ran through it.  After I finished I started walking back to see how the kids were doing.  Jen saw the girls and ran in with them.  I kept going to look for Dylan.  He was about 5 minutes behind Kylee and he looked miserable.  His side was killing him.  He was stumbling as he ran, probably because of the pain.  I told him to walk for a minute if he needed instead of tripping.  We walked for a bit until the finish line was close, and then he ran in.  He wasn't very happy.  But that's typical of Dylan too.  I won't be surprised if he still wants to run it again next year.  He really needs to run more to get past these sideaches all the time.

 Final times:
Jen-23:08
Joanie- 24:58
Kylee- 27:27
Averi- 27:29
Dylan- 32:37

We looked up results right away and saw that Kylee took 1st!  And of course Averi was right behind her in 2nd. (There were 55 in their age group!)   Kylee won a box of fireworks (she was disappointed it wasn't a medal, but I was excited about the fireworks.)

The results showed Jen as 4th but then they called the winners and they called her as 3rd!  The lady that took first got an overall female spot so Jen was bumped up. 

 I took 12 out of 164, not too shabby.  It's hard, once I knew I wasn't going to beat my previous time I didn't see the point in continuing to push myself to the point of puking.  Dylan was 23 out 60, which I think is pretty darn good.  The thing is, there are some super fast little boys.  Like they were born to run.  So they got amazing times and even if Dylan had ran a stronger race he could not have beat them.  I was proud of him.

I had Jen take this picture just to show that Kylee is not near as tall as me. 

After the race, we got cleaned up and headed over to Grandma's houses to party with the family.  We took a few pictures.

And we played some games.

Then we got the big water games out.  These were so fun!  We had a 100 foot slip n slide, and dish soap.  Hours of fun.  The kids played HARD and were pretty exhausted afterwards. Too bad it wasn't super hot like it usually is.  It was warm enough, though.

 Then we set up kiddie pool dodge ball.  We often play dodge ball in Grandma's large backyard, but this water version looked so fun I wanted to try it.  We had a lot of fun!

Later, once it was dark, we went to Jeff and Brooke's house to light some fireworks and hang out.  It wasn't actually coat weather, just sweatshirts since it was not as hot as usual, but Sadie decided coats were easier to find for her and Kaden so now they are wearing coats in July.  Silly kids.

 The girls got a bit bored of the fireworks I guess, and had a blast with all the glow sticks.