Who would have thought we would have runners in the family?

On Saturday, the kids and I went to the kick-off for Marathon Kids. It is a program started in Central Texas that is slowly spreading across the country. During the course of 5 months, kids run small segments that eventually add up to a marathon. They keep track of their running on charts at school. At the end in February, they all get t-shirts plus they receive a medal if they attend the final celebration. This weekend (yeah, Sean, I spelled weekend without a dash!), the kids ran about 1/2 mile by making 2 laps on the track. It was held at the wonderful UT track and field stadium that is supposed to be one of the nicest track facilities around. Alex ran with other 3rd graders and was in the top of the group while Emma and I were behind the pack with Benjamin in the stroller. Alex was out in front of all the 3rd graders for about 1/2 a lap. I think he finished in the top 10 or so. Emma was inspired by everyone else running so she took off after a while. She also was quite enthused about all the UT athletes ringing the track who were giving the kids high 5s. At the end, they got water bottles and UT athletes were signing autographs. Alex probably had about 20 athletes sign his water bottle. UT athletes represented cross country, tennis, baseball, basketball, swimming, rowing, etc. Despite the sun and long opening speeches, it was a fun event.

As a quick note about the picture below, the large pointed tower is where I would be working if I was still with Ernst and Young. They moved to that building about 6 months after I had Benjamin. It's quite a place. Sean is off to California for an overnight trip. He left this morning and will return very late on Monday night. He's meeting with someone from JPL in Pasadena about a project they have been sharing. His flight out there actually arrived early. That's a pleasant surprise. We just took it easy today since Daddy was gone. The kids built forts and finished watching Gremlins. You should hear them laugh when the Gremlins take over the movie theater.

Benjamin and I are going to lunch with a friend tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. It is so nice to have the kids back in school. We have a little more free time, although Benjamin still has 2-3 appointments per week. We may be adding another one with speech therapy. He will be evaluated on Friday, so we'll let you know what they think.

My last note is that I have all of the kids' Halloween costumes. I decided to try looking around on Ebay this year and actually managed to win some auctions for reasonable prices. Emma will be a unicorn, Alex will be a brainwashed alien and Benjamin will be a leopard. I'm pretty excited. We also have another costume for Emma since I have been dying to dress her up as Annie every year. I found a super cute little red dress with the white collar. It may be a little big so she could wear it next year (we haven't received it yet). Otherwise, they dress up as story book characters at school so she could wear it there. I'm planning to get some red hair spray and then she'll have the little red dress. Maybe we'll have to rent the movie so Emma knows who Annie is. I tried singing Tomorrow to her, but I can only remember a few of the words.