Crazy Late Nights and a Crazy Muddy Day

For the second year in a row, Josiah and David decided that they wanted to participate in the Dayton Muddler.  I mean, why not?  Doesn't everyone want to brutally push themselves through tough obstacles and a grueling race in order to raise money for a good cause?  ;-)

Tobin wanted so badly to run it this year; but since the official cut-off is age 10, he'll have to wait for next year.

Josiah and David were joined by three of their friends from church--Hannah, Dean, and Abby.

And speaking of our church...we manned a water table which was situated right after a big long mud pit.

When I say "we," I mostly mean "they," since my sole contribution to the project was filling one or two cups with water.

But I did bring my kids who weren't running the race, and they were more helpful than I was!

Benjamin did a pretty good job of keeping his stroller occupied and his pretzels eaten.  ;-)

And Moriah got a little tired of watching the runners go by, so she enjoyed some fun with coloring and stickers.

Like last year, we were eagerly awaiting the sight of our group coming through the course.

Abby was the first one we saw...

...followed by David, Dean, Hannah...

...and Josiah.

After they went through this portion, I hurried back to the finish line to welcome them in.

We were so proud of them!!  :)

They were a lot more tired and a lot more muddy than when they started, but their smiles were bright.  :)

And then we went to the backyard of Abby's home which is nearby; and while the runners used the garden hose to wash at least a little of the mud off themselves, Moriah got to play.  :)

Everything went really well with the Muddler, including the weather which was absolutely perfect for it.  I'm thinking that Josiah and David aren't going to stop with two of these under their belts.  Next year will surely find us there again; and when that occurs, we'll bring even more mud home with us since Tobin will be old enough to join in!  :)

That evening, for some strange reason, Jeff, Josiah, David, and I all found ourselves in the living room after the younger ones had gone to bed; and we thoroughly enjoyed the chance to talk--just the four of us.  We enjoyed it so much, in fact, that we stayed up until about 1:45 in the morning talking!!!  Now staying up that late isn't unusual for me, but it IS for certain other members of the family.  ;-)  It was a really unusual, really special time.

The next night was Sunday, and we were trying to figure out what movie we could watch as a family while we ate our Sunday evening popcorn.  Jeff came up with the idea to watch the old show Highway to Heaven, so we started that and ended up watching three episodes, which kept us up later than we normally stay up as a family.  We're having so much fun with this show (that first aired when I was eight years old, by the way!) that each evening, we try to get our necessary stuff done so that we can watch at least one episode before bedtime.

Ah, summertime!  We sure are enjoying this last month of it, when we can be a little crazy before the "normal" schedule of life resumes!  :)