Week Recap: 5K, Snow, 76 degrees

Jim ran a 5k in Sanford on Saturday. The weather was cool, but not cold- perfect for racing! The kids were very inspired by watching everyone warm up. Nicole started running around and I would guess she ran a mile just for fun as she raced all around the field in front of the church where the race began.The pace car was one of those bright red itsy bitsy death traps. Michael was very sad when he realized we could only watch instead of race.Jim coming around the home stretch! Jim said as he neared the end it was getting really difficult to keep running his pace and would have liked to walk. But then he pictured the kids and me waiting for him, and he knew he had to finish strong. When he rounded the corner, the kids shouted "Come on Daddy! Go Daddy!" They were so excited for him!As we raced over to the finish line, the kids grabbed some fruit slices and water and crammed Jim's hands full of recovery food as soon as he cooled down. We enjoyed the race so much! Jim really impressed me with his time. He actually didn't train a lick for this, I just signed him up for it :-) and he didn't even run a half mile in prep. And it's been 10 years since he even ran that far. That being said, he ran at the pace of my good run for the whole three miles. Just under 8:30 a mile. I think without any practice I would have collapsed about 100 yards in :-)On Monday we had a nice one inch snow. Not "big snow" like Michael kept wanting, but still enough for him to shout "Christmas! Christmas!" continuously all that morning. Nicole got to make her snow angel and Jacob stayed inside with his runny nose.We had some friends over and they managed to make this snowman! The sun was quickly melting the backyard, but the porch is in the shade so the snow stayed for a day longer there.By Thrusday, we had melted snow, a midnight rainstorm's worth of water and 76 degrees. I told the kids to not get muddy. Specifically and emphatically. An hour later I had these hooligans trying to enter the back door to "wash off." I told them they could come in when the mud had dried. They took it in stride since I knew they remembered my previous request.I don't even know where they managed to find such a ton of mud. But Michael's genetic makeup seems to include the mess finder/maker DNA in abundance. And it looked like he had a wonderful time all covered in mud, so I didn't really mind as long as my newly mopped kitchen floor didn't get similarly coated. He certainly learned all about how mud dries and is hard to get off the skin :-)