10-12-2013

the aquarium of the pacific's kids fun run!

i signed dashiell and bren up for this months ago, and had told them about it, and they were excited.  

they still are!  no parents (except for special needs kids and their parents) so it was going to be all them.

 we had to wait for the 7-yr olds wave to start
(bren stayed with dash instead of waiting another 1/2 hour for the 6 and under (the last) wave.

 in the corral, waiting to begin.

 i walked ahead to a good spot down the way to get some pictures of them once they started.

 the course makes kind of a "T", so i was able to see them in a few spots =)
(notice the water is on their left)

 coming back from the other side
(notice the water is on their right now)

 SMILE!  i high-fived both kids (and a few others) along the way

 then looped back down the path

 back onto the walkway
at which point i began running alongside dashiell and cheered him on
then he totally sped up and caught right up to brennan!

 high-fiving sharky!
after the boys ran in, i heard the announcer call out "11 minutes!"
so i KNOW they finished in under 11 minutes.
WOO-HOO!  great job for their first one-miler!!!

 dashiell found his way out of the finisher's chute pretty quickly

 had to search for brenny a little bit ;-)

 brennan was hot and tired.
he almost didn't want his medal on because he was so sweaty.  he actually wanted to take his shirt off!
guess next time i should maybe invest in some shirts that will wick away the sweat and/or bring an extra shirt to change into.

 we headed over to bubba gumps to eat some lunch.
mom and i had shrimp (of course!) but i couldn't convince them to eat the popcorn shrimp -- they both opted for chicken strips.

 then we headed over to the aquarium for FREE
the kids each got free entry tickets (which was free with our free entry into the kids fun run -- what can be better than that?!)
i got in free by showing my bib, and i also got a free ticket in my goody bag - so mom used that.

 who's this l'il guy?  i didn't see a sign...will have to look and see if i can find out

 but here's a sea dragon
i'm so totally amazed by them

 actually i'm even more amazed by the LEAFY sea dragon!

mom and i were tired, and even though we didn't go through the whole aquarium (we conveniently left out the outdoors section).   i didn't want to overdo being on my feet as i have to run tomorrow morning...
BUT as a trade off, i didn't feel too guilty about telling the boys i'd get them something small from the gift shop because we did gain entry for free today!
so bren got a little turtle and dash got a little penguin.
hmm, no pics of them.  maybe later or tomorrow.  =)
now to get my gear ready and head off to bed...