4th of July 2012

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays.  We start off every year by waking up ridiculously early so we can run the Freedom Festival 1 mile fun run as a family.  We decided several years ago that the Freedom Festival race is for our kids.  We run races all year, but this one is all about our kids.  Anna was so excited to run really fast.  She had even gone for some practice runs before the day of the race.  She was "training" for her big race.  It is too bad that for some reason they didn't make the youth extra small size shirts this year.  Their shirts were so huge on them.  They still looked cute all ready to run.

Anna was pumped, ready to run with Devin.  I was a little nervous to see how Nicholas would handle the chaos.  The first time Anna ran, she tripped and cried for the first quarter mile.  The race started and Anna and Devin took off.  She really wanted to win a trophy like she did last year.  Nicholas was happy as a clam.  Everyone was running, so he ran too.  I should have taken my camera with me because he was grinning ear to ear and running as fast as his little legs could go.  I did pick him up at one point because he was running the wrong way.  He loved running down the finish line stretch.  I was so proud of him.  He "ran" the mile in 22:31 and he didn't cry at all.
Anna did awesome!!! She ran it in 13:16 which was 3 minutes faster than her time last year.  And...

Anna took 2nd place in her age division.  Way to go!!!  I love how excited Nicholas was for his sister.
Anna loves her new trophy.

The kids loved all the stuff they got at the end of the race.

 They were smart and made kid size water bottles.

As we were running I told Nicholas that he could have a banana when we finished the race.  He kept saying, "tunnel, banana"  which means if he runs through the finish line, which looks like a tunnel, he would get a banana.  He still will say, "tunnel, banana" when he sees a banana.
I am so glad that his is a fun tradition that our whole family can participate in.  Anna and Nicholas had the time of their life!

And I think we got a pretty good family picture too!

Not to mention this picture which is priceless!

The rest of the day was tons of fun.  So much fun that I forgot to take pictures. We stopped by my mom's house for breakfast.  Then went home and took naps so we could survive the rest of the day.  Then we went up to my Uncle Jim and Aunt Wendy's house for the Henderson BBQ.  Anna and Nicholas loved swimming in the pool.  Anna was crazy with her new life jacket.  She was jumping off the diving board and "swimming" all over the pool.  Nicholas had a great time too and loved jumping off the edge into the pool.  Then we went to watch the fireworks.  Both kids did great!  And both kids crashed on the way home.  I am glad that we decided to change them into their PJs right before the fireworks.  As soon as the fireworks were done we put them in the car and they were both gone!  Anna even slept in until 9:30am the next morning which is completely unheard of at our house.
It was a great day!  Happy 4th of July!