Ironman

Every year for the past couple of year the Ironman has come to town.  Each year I've wanted to volunteer for it but it just never happened.  This year I decided to make it a priority and signed us up to help with the running portion of the race.  It was a great experience. We went at 10am in the morning.  Our shift was suppose to end at 1pm.  The first few hours we spent helping them set stuff up. We decorated the porta potties with paper...had no idea we would be doing that and set up all the different water, food stations. The first runners in the race came around the end of our shift.  That is what we wanted to do the most was to help the runners out so we stayed. They actually needed our help since some people didn't show up.  The kids at first were a little shy but by the end they were way into it.  Helping in so many ways.  We handed out cold sponges, water, gatorade and goo and anything else that the runners were wanting.  We ended up staying until 7pm helping with the race. It was a lot of work and we were very tired at the end of the day but it sure was a fun and memorable day. So proud of the good kids we have and the hard workers they were.  We had a few comments from some of the people over the station at how impressed they were with how hard our kids worked. 

 I hope the kids learned how fun service can be and the good feeling you have when you do it.  This spring there hasn't been as many butterflies around.  In fact it had been a few weeks since I had seen a butterfly but this day during most of the day as we volunteered a butterfly would fly by.  I just had to think that Wyatt was letting us know how proud he was of us and what we were doing as a family and that we were doing it together and creating some lasting memories.  That was a tender mercy for me that day.

She was sooooo excited when the first person took her water.  It took a few people until that happened since she was the smallest kid there but when it did she jumped up and down with delight.  So fun to see her excitment.

We had a neighbor girl staying with us for the week so we signed her up too.  That made it that much more fun.  She has since moved and we sure do miss her! 

The theme of the station we worked at was "Hollywood".  They had all sorts of stars and even a red carpet that the runners ran on.  I had no idea they did that kind of stuff.  It made it that much more fun for us especially since we got to help decorate it.

Handing out the gatroade...it was so good for my kids to have to get out of their comfort zone and speak to and cheer the runners on.:)

After we got done volunteering we walked to the finish line and watched as some of the Ironmen finished.  Quite amazing!  So fun to be a part of.  Look forward to helping out next year.