Michael and Mallory: It's nice to be outside again

Now that things are finally warming up, I've noticed our schedule getting more and more jam packed with so many events and activities. Plus, we are just spending a lot of time outside. Mal and I have been working on the house and trying to get it worthy to rent out as a weekly rental. We are hoping to rent it out while we head out west this year. It would pay for the trip. Do you know anyone that wants to visit Maine for a week? A few of the major projects include fixing the deck, painting a few of the interior walls, and getting some base cabinets in our kitchen. We still have some work to do, but we are making progress.

On Thursday, it got up to 80 degrees! Unbelievable. It hadn't reached this temperature since early last fall. When I got home from work, I declared "After we eat, we are heading to Sand Beach." How could we not? it was so nice. The kids ran around and played, Petranella got her first taste of sand, with hope to completely drain their energy. The latter didn't work out so well, but they did have a blast. I love living 15 minutes away from a nice beach. Amazingly enough, the tourists aren't on the beach in the evening either.

On Saturday we participated in a fun run that was put on by the YMCA. It was a 1-mile run, and they had other events inside afterwards. It was Madie and Finns first race, so they didn't seem to know what was going on in the beginning. Madie understands the basic concepts of a race, particularly since she took interest in racing after my triathlon last year. But I don't know that they understood what was going on in the moment it was happening...at least that's what I perceived.

Once they blew the horn, everyone took off running. Elvis, Madie and Finn were both on either side of myself and Petranella, and stood there looking up at me. I said emphatically, "Let's go!" I tried to get them to start jogging or running, or something, but there was a certain amount of resistance (especially from the oldest). Finn saw an ambulance that was on-hand for the race, and couldn't think about anything else except sitting in the driver seat of that truck. I had to coax him a bit with the ambulance by saying, "Hey buddy, after we run this race, we'll go talk to the man in the ambulance and see if you can sit inside, okay?" He kept asking me for confirmation that we were going to talk to that man the rest of the race. When we saw a dog ahead of us, he really picked up his pace. The fact that we would get free Ben & Bills Ice Cream after the race was another motivator.

About halfway through the race, Madie and Mal charged ahead of us. Madie was clearly motivated to get to the end. This is very typical of Madie. She can be one of the fastest kids out there...if she chooses to be. She is an extremely smart, helpful, and talented kid. Boy is she stubborn though! She usually makes good choices, but sometimes holds her back on little things. I was proud of her for pulling through. She was so proud of the medal she got after the race was done. It was a real medal. She wore it he rest of the day, and was about to wear it to church until we suggested otherwise. She said that she was excited to share it with her class during 'share'. I hope this is the first of many races for her.

One more funny thing that happened inside the YMCA. Stone Soup, a local toy store, was one of the vendors holding activities for the kids in the gym. Their activity was a 15 yard sprint across a mat, to which the winner would receive a brown bag with a mystery toy inside. The sprint events were by age (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), so both Madie and Finn could participate. When it was Finn's turn to race, I went to get some extra motivation for him. There was a wellness group that was giving away samples of healthy juice to everyone that Finn had already gone back to at least three times. So before the race, I grabbed a sample, and told him "Finn, you need to stand over there next to that lady. When she says go, I want you to run to me as fast as you can and you can drink this. Okay?" He nodded in determination, and ran over to the lady. There were two other kids standing next to him. Once the lady said "Go!", Finn took of. He was clearly ready for another drink!

Madie has been climbing as many trees as possible. She says that she climbs a pole with her friends at school. She is actually really good! She could go much higher if she wanted, but this is her usual max.

Petranella loved the beach! She struggled to roll over, but it's hard to beat the smell, sound, and sight of the beach.

Playing at the beach came back to these two pretty quickly. It seems like I've had to help get them warmed up to a few activities in the beginning, but Madie took charge right away and Finn followed suit. They even got their feet in the 42 degree water.