volunteering at a 5k, wyoming bound, cali's program, and a mom date

I try very hard to avoid any event or activity that requires me to use an alarm clock on Saturday.  Saturday is that one blissful morning when I can just let my body be on its own. 

It would seem though, that running has my number.  I have a love/hate relationship with running.  For whatever reason I seem to crave it.  I want to go.  Enough that I slide dinner, work, and even sleep, around to get a run in.

I can't seem to wrap my head around it while I'm out pounding the pavement and this is where the hate part comes in.  I wonder why do I do this to myself?  I'm not going to do this again.  I'm done with this hobby, let's find a new one. 

When I'm finished I'm on cloud 9 and already devising how I'm going to beat my own time, or go a longer distance on the next round.

I can't get away from it.

Our neighborhood put on a 5k on a bright, sunny Saturday morning.

I groaned as my alarm clock rang. 

Why do I do this?

I wasn't even running.  I had volunteered to help "run" the 5k with my friend Suzy, who looked a little wild eyed and desperate as she walked around with the sign up sheet, looking for names of people to help her. 

To be honest, if I'd not signed up to help Suzy, I'm sure my craving would have kicked in and I would have been there with my running shoes anyway.  Why not?  It was a free event.

Instead I drug Cas out of bed and walked around the corner to the local church parking lot where we met up with friends and cut fruit for the finish line.

To Suzy's credit, she had it mostly done already.

We had the fruit finished before the run started and it half crossed my mind to go home and change and join in, but on this particular weekend our schedule was a little skiwampus.  Instead of driving the circus part way to Vernal on Friday, I was taking them to Wyoming (again... here) on Saturday morning.  I'm not a fan of when these drives cut into my Saturday, but I suppose that sometimes it's just the nature of the beast.

After cutting up the fruit I had just enough time to walk home with Cas and whip the circus into a frenzy to get dressed (they were all awake by the time we got home), brush your hair and teeth, get your chore done, and get packed.  We're leaving in a half hour.

Do you want to know how amazing my kids are?  The got it all done in a half hour.

After we hit the road I received a text from my ex saying he was running behind because of some ordeal with the pilot car not being ready.  Again, nature of the beast.  Sadly I'm well acquainted with a trucker's life, so I had empathy in knowing he really couldn't do anything with a situation like that.  But this gave the circus and I some extra time on the road.  We drove around Park City but couldn't find anything fun to see.  I really need to brush up on how to get around Park City, there should have been a ton to see.

I think before the next drive I'm going to have to google Park City so I can at least find historic Main Street.

We did find a McD's for drinks...

Since Park City was  a bust due to my lack of knowledge of the area we decided to see what we could see in Evanston.  We ate lunch and then drove around looking for a park to untrap ourselves from the car.

Evanston is quite the sleepy little town. 

We never did find a park, but we found a cute stone church with a flowering tree so we stopped for a few pictures.

Luckily by that point my ex arrived and we headed to the truck stop.

At this rate I'm going to know every truck stop in Wyoming.

Cali had her 1st grade program on Friday.  To say she was excited about it would be an understatement.  She mentioned her program to me everyday for two weeks.

The night before she asked me five times to please put an alarm on my phone for noon so I wouldn't forget.

Does she know me or what.  I reassured her five times that I already had the reminder alarm in place.

My favorite part about these programs is when the kids are filing in, and they stand there in the noise and search the crowd in hopeful anticipation.  Did my mom make it?

And you sit there, stretching your back as straight as it will go and craning your neck to make you as tall as you can get so they'll see you, even though you took a seat in the front on the edge of the middle aisle so you'd be easy to see.

And then they see you and their face lights up.

I love that.

I also love the giant flower sitting front and center on Cali's head. *sigh*  The things that happen after you've left for work in the morning...

After the singing program we went into the classroom and the kids put on a reading presentation.  It was actually really entertaining.

This momma was busting with pride every time Cali read her parts.  I couldn't wipe the silly grin off my face.

The 1st grade teachers had sent a note home asking that you either check your child out after the program or sign up to eat school lunch with them.

I opted to check Cali out and take her to lunch.  Her choice.  I was thinking she was going to pick Taco Bell or Subway.

Imagine my surprise when she dropped "Olive Garden" on me.

I'm trying to do that more often.  Take the circus out for one on one time. 

Maybe even for no reason at all.