Tuesday, November 9, 2010

5K's for Dummies

Several years ago, a dear friend talked us into doing a 5K with her. "This will be great! We're gonna have so much fun! We'll take ALL of our kids to a 5K!"At the time we only had 4 of the 7 children that we now have  collectively but they were 2,3,4, and 6. What were we thinking?!

The race (The Dino Dash) that started at 8:30am was at Fair Park in Dallas, benefitting The Science Place. So, we loaded up the children, car seats, strollers, diaper bags, and anything else we could imagine we might need for our brood and headed out at about 5:45am. As  I mentioned in an earlier post, we nearly always have to stop for a potty break fairly soon after starting our journeys. We did make it to Dallas before the first tee tee call came but that did it, everyone HAD to go. So, we quickly make a call to our dear friend in the car ahead of us and have her pull over for a quick (yeah right) stop. Not only does she pick McDonald's (now everyone is of course hungry again even though we just had donuts), she chose one in a very iffy part of town. (This happened to be an area I grew up in and was very aware of the fact that 3 white chicks and their 5 little kids should NOT be wondering around in the neighborhood. Especially before daylight.)

We finally arrived to the chaotic hustle and bustle that accompanies any event at Fair Park. After unloading ALL of the children, strollers, diaper bags, and whatever other luggage we thought necessary to haul around with us, we got our little paper numbers and got ready to race. Keep in mind that our dear friend, whose idea this was, keeps in pretty good shape and running races is somewhat of a hobby for her. Us, not so much. The race starts and we take off like we are actually going to get anywhere with 4 kids and a couple of strollers. About 20 minutes into this we start wondering if we were even going to make it to the finish line today. It took a lot of effort and I'm pretty sure we were almost the last people to finish but we did it. The kids all got little medals and were so excited that they had "won" the race.

The rest of the day was spent enjoying face painting, bounce houses, and then time in The Science Place and Aquarium. All race contestants received free admission for the day so we couldn't miss out on the exhibits. We roamed and we roamed and we chased kids and then we roamed some more. If you've never been to The Science Place and Aquarium at Fair Park, well that place is HUGE. Especially after just doing a 5K with 4 kids who at this point have been up since the butt crack of dawn and have not had a nap. The kids had the time of their life. We ended our time at Fair Park with a quick ride on the swan paddle boats. Guess what? When you are out in a paddle boat with a bunch of kids, you are going to be the only one paddling. Just so you know.

Of course, we still had to make the LONG drive home after stopping for dinner. We, of course, thought El Fenix would be the place to dine. I mean how bad could it be with 4 small children who've had no nap and 2 exhausted and sweaty moms?

We finally arrived home after the trip back and a stop at Wal-Mart (yes we are that stupid) thinking, How did we get ourselves into this?

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