The Big Event

The morning of the big event was finally here!

Tate did his hair (all by himself), for the special day-I think he was going for a "torch" look.

One of our regrets was bringing our kids with us to get set-up. 

We were there an hour or so early to get everything set-up and the kids were just running around having a great time.  They wanted to help move the cones and set-up the water bottles.  By the time our friends had come and we were ready to get started . . . Blake was done.

He had had enough running and needed a break.

He was a trooper though and put on a smiling face and was willing to participate.

*Next time, get a babysitter for the kids while we set-up so they can really enjoy it! 

A make-shift "baby zone" was constructed out of strollers to keep the little ones cool.

A big hooray for our friend Mary who helped with the babies.

She was great to hold Ryan pretty much the entire time while he cried because it was hot and he was tired! 

We played some fun "Duck-Duck-Goose" while we waited for everyone to come. 

And then we did some warming-up and stretches before we divided up into teams to rotate through the different events. 

Our team started off at the long-jump.

 

Then we headed over to the hurdles. 

There was two lanes of hurdles-high and low depending on what the kids wanted to do.

We all started going over the low boxes and then they wanted to try the bigger ones and did awesome jumping over those too.

Blake tried so hard to get over the little hurdles.

They were still wide for a hurdle, but he did it! 

 Concentration . . . lots of concentration to not fall.

 The ball throw was next.

The kids did great waiting turns to throw the tennis ball so no one got hit while collecting the balls.

On to the obstacle course that kept wanting to blow away.

They went through the rings . . .

jumped on the dots (not sure why this picture is upside down) . . .  

climbed through tunnels, jumped over swimming noodles . . . and then got in line to do it again.

Our team had a lot of spirit and did a team cheer after each event. 

Our last stop was the sprints. 

Blake was really done by then and did not want to run anymore.

The bigger kids did great even though they were all ready for a break. 

(Tate on far left)  Just about to cross the blue finish line! 

We lined the teams up to get ready for the relay race.

We were impressed with how well they did spreading out and waiting to get the baton.

When Tate got the baton he just held it like "what am I supposed to do now?"

Run. Keep running to the end.

 

Ryan finally calmed down and enjoyed a nice stroller ride over to the refreshment table. 

 

This was most of the kids we could round up and get to sit still long enough for a picture.

Everyone enjoyed the snacks, had lots to drink and then headed home.

Paige and I were talking about how it went and although it didn't go exactly as we had planned, we both agreed how much fun we had putting it together.  We were so appreciative of the help from the parents and we were so impressed with how well-behaved all the kids were.  There were about 30 kids and we were nervous about how well they would do staying in teams and not running all over the place.  But, they were awesome-no problems at all! 

It was great to have both of us working on it together so it wasn't too much for one person to do.  We really loved working on all the different parts of this activity and were so glad it was something our kids had fun doing and will remember.  John's been watching a lot of the Olympics this past week and Tate has actually liked watching some of it since he got to do his own Olympics!