Kip's Birthday

For Kip's birthday, he decided to run a 1/2 marathon. What else would you do on your birthday. Especially when you've got three sessions of General Conference to attend, and possibly a soccer game? Oh--and it's POURING rain.

So Kip was kind of dreading this marathon. And then I felt bad because I had really encouraged him to do it. There were several other people in our ward doing it. But then I think he was really really glad he did it. Even if I didn't manage to get even a single non-blurry shot. But did I mention it was raining? Except at this one stop where it was just barely drizzling. Still, I blame the rain for my bad cameramanship. (Kip's in the yellow.)

Personally, I thought it was way fun to CHEER for a 1/2 marathon. Even in the pouring rain. We tried to meet Kip at the 6-mile mark at Garvin park, but got stopped at a road block for runners. Just as I got out of the car in a random parking lot, I saw two of our friends running and they said Kip was right behind him. Which he was. Hurray for not making it to the park. Then Mark said he wasn't feeling well and he was going to puke and he wanted to go home, even though he was supposed to get a ride to his soccer game. So I took the kid home and he didn't puke, but went to bed. And I headed back to the race. We saw Kip at the 9-mile mark and then I meant to go to the finish, but we hit another road block with runners going through, so we stopped at the 12-mile mark. The fun (and slightly miraculous) thing about all these stops is that we never saw just Kip, but we saw at least 3 other of Kip's running friends each time. Throughout the race we saw all but one (sorry Kirstin) of our friends and it was so fun. I didn't realize what a big deal it was that we saw them all within 7 minutes of each other until I tried to drive to the finish line (HUGE mistake--should have walked from the 12-milk mark). We drove back along the runners trying to get through (the finish line was on the other side of the line of runners and there was just NO easy way to get to it; kind of annoying honestly; no detour signs either). Anyway, there were just 100's of people stretching on forever and it was just so fun to me that I got to see so many of the people we knew by just standing around for a few minutes.

Anyway, after trying unsuccessfully to get through the barricades and lines of runners and then turning around and missing my exit and having to go way off in the wrong direction and then coming back and begging a police officer to let me through so I could get to the finish line and pick up my husband, we finally got to Kip, like 40 minutes after he finished. I felt really really bad about it (and had spent several minutes of the car ride screaming at red lights and other objects I had no control over--which was also a bad choice), but Kip was okay with it and we went home and opened gifts.

Kids giving gifts is pretty cute.  Savannah gave him this pumpkin she got on her school field trip and then decorated (so sweet). Emma got him car air fresheners because I picked her gift out and we needed some (sorry Emma and Kip); Elizabeth got him Reese's cup; and Mark was the most particular--he got him root beer in glass bottles. Mark was so excited about this, but then spent the whole day begging to have one himself (he'd heard this was the best kind from some friends), so that eventually he had to be threatened to stop asking or he would never receive one.

Then we watched conference. Kip felt pretty good and ran the whole race (no walking!). His knee was (and still is) hurting, but with some rest should be fine.

Between conference sessions, some friends came over for cake, and that was really nice too. Then more conference. Then pizza and more conference.

A good day. A very good day.