Cherry Blossoms

Back in my UW days, I always loved when winter quarter wrapped up.  Not only did it mean spring break, it meant a weeks of cherry blossoms in the Quad.  Over the past few years, we kept meaning to make a trip over to check them out but things came up and we missed our small window of opportunity.   I thought that would be the case this year as well, after busy weekends and lots of rain, but we had some time yesterday morning and a decent forecast, so we finally made the trek over.

The boys loved walking up all the stairs from the parking lot to the Quad, and then wandering around looking at the trees.  Jackson loved taking photos (and he's actually getting pretty good!), and Corey brought along his camera, which had been collecting dust, and snapped some awesome photos as well.

I'm so glad we were able to share this experience with the boys!

Jackson's First Race

Jackson ran his first race - a kids' 1K (0.4 miles) - yesterday and loved it!

I recently signed up for the 520 Bridge race and Corey's planning to bring the boys to watch.  We've been talking about that and Jackson's been very interested, with lots of questions about the race, so I figured it would be fun to get him signed up for his own race.  I did some Googling, found the Kirkland Shamrock Run and signed him up.

Early in the week, I reminded him that it was coming up and he said he needed to practice his running.  As a surprise, Corey came home with his first pair of running shoes that night.  Corey and Jackson went for a run that evening, to "practice" and J said his shoes made him realllly fast.  Throughout the rest of the week, he did lots of running laps around the downstairs.

Race day came and he was so excited for the race.  He was  able to watch our friend Chris run the adults' 5K race and got to see him win (seriously!  I've never known anyone who has won a race, so it was cool for all of us to see).  J loved it and asked a million questions about the race, etc.

Up next was the kids' race and J did awesome.  About 3/4s of the way through it, as we were making the final turn, he asked me "how may more miles?!"  But he kept running.  All the kids received medals and J has wore his most of the weekend.  He's so proud and is already looking forward to his next race.

J took this pic of us, since we were right near the bench that Corey and I relaxed on during our 2nd date (also the location of our first kiss, nearly 10 years ago!)

Got to hang with these cuties while watching Chris race

Cole's idea of racing - relaxing in the stroller with a snack and drink

#boymom

Cole putting the moves on Ellie (can't tell but he's kissing her cheek)

Picked up his bib, excited to find out what number he'd be

Chris leading the pack as they approached the finish line

And the kids are off!

Almost there (i.e. not many miles left)

The two racers!