Weekend Recap

Weekends begin on Friday in the Stockwell household (lucky ducks, I know). And despite the recent resurgence of spring (or winter?) weather, it was still summer this past Friday. So we had our first beach morning of the season.

Fighting over who gets to pull Audrey's chariot

Some intense parallel sand play

Doing what we do best at the beach - stuffing our faces! Once again, these boys decimated the snack and lunch supply within moments of arrival.

Sooner than we could wash the sand out of our sandals, cool and rainy weather returned. It came just in time for my Saturday morning plans which included, oh, a ten-mile run. Through the woods. Up and down mountains at 2,000 feet elevation. Fun times! Here I am with my partner-in-crime (actually, the ringleader who got us into this mess) right before the race started.

Can you tell how nervous we are? This was taken soon after we realized that everyone there had a.) race shirts from prior 25/50/100k trail runs, b.) extremely rippled muscles, and c.) no body fat.

Melissa and I trained for the "There's a Black Fly in My Eye" trail race for several months, but I think we may have overlooked a few key words in the course description: "rugged", "rocky surface", "boggy", "stream crossings", "unique character". The race organizers also left out what I would consider a critical descriptor: "MOUNTAINOUS"!

Horrible picture of me (this is after 10 miles, people!), but to give you a sense of this event's character...

The race was certainly challenging, but felt like a great accomplishment and was even a little fun. Melissa and I both ran the 10 miles in far less than our 2-hour goal and finished well above the feared last place position. We celebrated with a little post-race (indoor) BBQ at our house with the whole Doyle/Gerbi clan, where I consumed enough food to more than make up for calories expended during the race.

Since Ethan can't possibly get his fill of Molly, we got together with the Doyles again on Sunday for pottery painting and pizza. The pottery painting went better than I expected. Ability to sit still and paint is most definitely correlated with age, but even the little ones sat still for a bit (except Jack - note Melissa trying to deflect him from large shelf full of breakable items at top right).

Of course, all sitting still skills were worn out by dinnertime.

Practicing for their first dance