Turkey Trot

Every year there is the Rich Dalessandro Memorial 5K in early November.  It is also known as the Turkey Trot.  Last year, I participated with Sandy and Rachel.  This year, Madison and Ellie decided they would like to try it out.  It made me nervous; I won’t lie.  When we walk to the Town and Country – 1 mile – they sometimes complain.  I did not want 3.2 miles of girls complaining, me cajoling them to go, girls crying, me getting angry.  But, I thought, I’ll let them try it.  Jeremy signed up, too.  (He had already had a pretty successful run at the Kidron 5K in early October this year.)  And we now had partners to run with. 

I asked Marilyn if she could knit a few more turkey hats for the girls, and she did!  We were a family of turkeys.

On race day, Ellie decided the hat was itchy (still not sure if it was how itchy it was or maybe how embarrassing it was).  Luckily, Jeremy had an extra hat on, so he gave it to her.  We saw Marianne walking, too, so we gave her the turkey to wear.  It was not a wasted hat!

We made sure to find THE turkey to round out our family of turkeys!

We had a great time running.  Ellie said, “When my friend, Kennah, asks me how the race was, I am going to tell her it was fun.  Because there were lots of people and I got to run with my mom.” Sweetest thing ever.  She also told me it was more fun because she didn’t know we would be able to talk, and she thought we would only be running, running, running.  Well, if you know Ellie, it would be miserable to participate and NOT talk.  Lucky for her, she picked the pace, and we talked. 

    

I think Jeremy and Madison had a great time, too.  I didn’t hear about any deep conversations between them, but they were both smiling when we saw them at the finish line.  Madison said that this was a lot of fun. 

We got medals, swag bag, t-shirts, donuts, chips, and a banana.  Things that make it fun, too. 

Here are our official times.  Not too shabby for the girls.

• Jeremy/Madison – 40 minutes, 34 seconds with a 13:02 mile pace…. She was pretty proud of herself because her mile in gym was 13 minutes, so she thought it would take about 39 minutes to run this. 

• Erin/Ellie – 44 minutes, 29 seconds with a 14:20 mile pace…. I was proud of Ellie for running as many intervals as she did – and she didn’t have any side aches today!

Not sure this will be a tradition, but it was a fun thing to do this year.

Trunk or Treat

This year, the girls went as Little Red Riding Hood and a 50s Diner Waitress.  Both were pretty cool outfits.

We started the night trick-or-treating at my mom and dad’s house.  It is fun to show them the outfits. 

This is always a fun time and a great community event.  The Living Water Church hosts a Trunk-or-Treat time for kids.  There are a lot of cars with trunks open and decorated manned by costumed people passing out candy.  They are always so creative.  I admire their willingness to do this for the community.  They also have hot dogs, chips, a cookie, and hot chocolate donated by Dutch Kitchen.  We always end up with too much candy, but we all have so much fun!

We usually meet up with Jeremy’s mom for this event. 

This year, we found the perfect “trunk” for Ellie to join.  But she wanted to keep going with us, so she didn’t stay to hand out candy!

Thanks, Living Water.  It was another great year!