More birthday stuff plus jabbering from a proud mom

We went out for dinner on Wednesday night for Ed’s birthday. That’s our family tradition…I don’t cook on birthdays. ;) When I asked Ed where he wanted to go for dinner he said, “I want to go to that Mexican place in Nooksack with Melissa.”

(Insert silence as I process what he said.)

With…Melissa?

“Okay. Uh. Have a good time?”

“No, I mean, all of us go to that place with Todd & Melissa.” Better, but still…a strange request. It’s usually just our family on birthdays, so this is a new one. Todd & Melissa are great friends, don’t get me wrong, this was just very out-of-the-ordinary.

“Okay. Uh. Why?”

“Because the people at the Mexican place know Melissa and bring her the spicy stuff and I want the spicy stuff.”

Oooooohhh! I get it! Perfect!

So thanks, Melissa, (& Todd, too) for joining us for Ed’s Mexican birthday dinner. He truly enjoyed the spicy jalepenos. (Melissa is holding one in the picture).

Yesterday was blue & white day at school – a spirit day to get the kids excited about the jog-a-thon, which was today. Sarah’s class won the spirit day contests for the 6th grade! Great job, everyone!

 

Today was jog-a-thon day. My girls have the running gene! Where they got it from, I’ll never know. I mean, they got it from their uncles…but who did they get it from? That’s where the line of the running gene gets a little...fuzzy and non-existent.

Anyhoo, this girl

ran a whopping 4.125 miles! See the sweat? Some of it’s water that she just poured over her head, but some really is sweat. She works hard at everything she does.  Her PE teacher told me that she’s a true athlete. The kids had 45 minutes to run around the school track. Each lap was two legs; Sarah ran 32, but got an extra leg because we didn’t use the inside lanes, so running around on the outside gives you actually more mileage. So we have to pay her for 33 legs.

This girl was in the 2nd group of runners today:

This child, who two years ago couldn’t run across the length of the gym without collapsing in pain from Juvenile Arthritis, ran 24 (25 with the bonus) legs which equals over THREE miles! In FORTY-FIVE minutes. She’s not even six! My heart was exploding from joy and gratitude watching her run without pain. I’m guessing she’ll wake up stiff in the wee morning hours, but that is something we can deal with.

And this girl

ran 30 (31 with bonus) legs, which is 3.875 miles. And she did it with a smile on her face pretty much the whole time. Here she had stopped running and started walking so that she could check in with her friend. She has a tender heart, that one.

And poor me. I think I ran 8 laps. I didn’t run the whole time, of course. I just ran when the kids needed encouragement. But holy cow. Running is way harder than walking, (which is my regular form of exercise). And does the fact that both my lower back and my butt hurt mean that I’m getting…less young?