The Marathon

So...did I mention Ben ran a marathon??? True story. Of course blogging about it has been a little delayed but what can I say...story of my life :) Anyway, Ben ran a MARATHON! Actually his second full marathon. Because he's a rockstar. Obviously.

In order to properly cheer on our participants, my mom has a carefully planned route of awesome stops throughout the marathon where we hold signs and yell and generally just try to be high energy...ya know, to keep everyone motivated! This year, I wanted to pay special homage to Ben so in addition to our signs I also made shirts for the girls to wear. Unfortunately it was pretty cold for the non-runners and the t-shirts ended up being covered with sweatshirts and blankets, but they were still pretty cute!

   
 And this year I googled to find some good signs. Thanks to Jenna who came over and helped me make all the signs! While watching Easy A. Which is HILARIOUS. But don't watch it mom...not your style :). Anyway, we wanted to do some specially for Ben, but also wanted to generally support everyone who decided to wake up at the crack of dawn in 40 degree weather to run 26.2 miles :)

We are so proud of Ben for how well he did! We actually had to skip two of our regularly scheduled stops because we didn't have time to get there before he would have already passed! Pretty crazy, right?!

The girls were SO proud of their daddy!!! They loved jumping out of the car and running to each stop to wait for him to come. Then they would yell and cheer and try to get to him as fast as they could. And then Bryar would cry when he was gone! (She was quickly consoled each time though since we packed up right away and headed to the next stop to "find daddy again") Overall we all had a blast getting out and supporting Ben in his awesome accomplishment.

But...here's the thing. Ben obviously has some kind of major conspiracy going on. We are INCAPABLE of getting a legitimate, clear "crossing the finish line" picture! I can't figure out why, but it just doesn't seem to happen (hence my conspiracy theory...there is no other explanation). 2 years ago he ran the half marathon and we actually missed him finishing because he was being too speedy (sad!). Then last year they moved the finish to the 50 yard line of memorial stadium and we had some camera malfunctions that ended in us missing getting his finish on film (stupid point and shoot cameras!). Then there was this year. This year I was DETERMINED that we were going to get a good shot of Ben crossing the finish line. Epic fail. I had my mom take a picture of the big screen and I was going to get the actual crossing. My mom was able to get a picture of the big screen. It's a little blurry but better than what I got. I honestly laugh now every time I see the picture I took...let's just say a wind gust+big flag=blocked shot. Haha!

***I would just like to point out that the conspiracy is real because there is a photo service that takes pictures you can purchase from the marathon website and ALL 3 pictures of him running across the line he had his eyes closed!!! I mean come ON, seriously!?!?

It took Ben about a half hour to get across the start line (10,000 people ran this year!) so his OFFICIAL finish time was actually 4 hours 13 minutes 38 seconds! He actually dropped 57 minutes (yes...as in almost a full HOUR) off of last year's time! I guess that's what doing some training will do for you :)

 Congrats Ben, you are AWESOME!

P.S. 

A little girl and her princess stroller

Less than 2 weeks after we got a bag and officially started keeping track of her money, Hayden reached her goal! Let's just say she is VERY motivated! That and we have some generous friends and family who helped her out :) carrying things, dusting, and cookie delivery were all able to earn her anywhere from a little spare change to a couple bucks and she was very grateful for it!

We even went ahead and got her a little piggy bank to keep all her money in. We figured if she was really going to be saving then she should have a good place to keep her money! I can't believe how attached she became to it...she was constantly carrying it around and once I even caught her talking to it. "I love you Piggy, you're my friend!" Then she hugged and kissed it! I was seriously cracking up, it was just too adorable!

It took us a few days to actually get her to Walmart to get her stroller, but on the day we went she was SUPER excited! Unfortunately the trip was a slight comedy of errors...starting with me leaving the camera sitting on the couch :( We got a few snapshots with our cellphones, but haven't uploaded them yet. Anyway, upon getting to her princess stroller (it was the last one at the store!) she was really happy and of course she wanted to hold on to it but didn't want to relinquish her piggy bank, which ended in a tragic plunge that caused poor little piggy's demise. It was extremely heartbreaking! Hayden's eyes welled up with tears and she said "it was just an accident" as Ben and I scrambled to figure out how to collect the money that had spilled all over the place. Poor girl, she loved Piggy!!! Anyway, Ben ran and got a little Ziplock container and we scooped all her money up. Luckily Piggy split into 3 large pieces and only a couple extra little pieces so clean up was relatively easy, but I was still really sad for Hayden! Thankfully the purchasing of the stroller was exciting enough to keep her distracted. The cashier rung it up and Hayden took all her "green dollars" out first and handed those over. Then came the longer process of counting out change, which is where I mostly took over while Hayden checked out her new wheels ;) In the end she paid only about a dollar in anything but quarters and actually had probably $3-$4 left over! She couldn't have been happier to be leaving the store with her stroller AND some "monies"!

  She LoVeS her princess stroller and she wants to play with it constantly! And even if it does drive me crazy that it's so big in our teensy house, I'm so stinkin proud of her that she was able to stay dedicated to that stroller, earn the money and buy it! That is pretty impressive for a 2 1/2 year old!

Now the real question is, what will she save for next?!