Last Saturday was Isabella's 8th birthday. It's so hard to believe she's 8, mainly because she's such a tiny thing! We kept asking her what she wanted to do for her birthday, and every time she said she wanted to go kayaking. The only problem was her cross country team had a 5k run planned for that morning to help raise money for uniforms. So we figured we'd just do both.
The night before she asked Chris if they could get up early and make pancakes together. We had to be at the race by 7:30am, so they got up pretty early!
Then we headed to the race. Normally for cross country, the elementary school kids run one mile and the middle schoolers run two miles. So this was longer than they were used to. And yes, Isabella wore the crown through the whole race!
Chris caught up with Sophia about half way and they ran together for a lot of the race. Sophia ended up finishing in 28.40 as the first female to finish the race and second in her age division. Chris finished 3rd in his (old man) age division. Anna and Isabella did a combination of running and walking with their friends and Sam and I walked the route. Honestly, it was more like I dragged Sam along with me. That was really far for his 6 year-old legs! We finished last, but he was the youngest on the course.
After the race we headed home to open some presents and eat lunch and cake.
Then we headed up to Cave Run Lake to kayak. Chris recently found a used kayak on Craigslist so he bought it and luckily it has enough room for Sam to sit in the front. We then rented two tandem kayaks. The lake was beautiful and it was pretty peaceful since there were storms nearby and most of the boaters stayed away. We all got the hang of tandem paddling pretty quickly. But we did learn the boats were a lot longer and heavier, so they were harder to maneuver. (Especially if one of the kids in the boat decides to take a long break like Isabella!!) At one point, we got dumped on by a really heavy rain shower. It only lasted a few minutes, but when you're out on a lake right at the water level, it can be a little scary.
Isabella is resting in the front of our boat!
Sam is relaxing up front!
While Chris and I loaded up all three kayaks on top of the suburban (should have taken a picture of that!!) the kids found a stick tied to a rope, tied to a tree. The perfect tree swing! They had a lot of fun with it!
Afterwards we had dinner and headed home for some much needed showers. And I'm sure you can imagine we were physically exhausted. Running a 5k wore out every one's legs and then kayaking wore out our arms. Man were we (Chris and I) sore on Sunday! But Isabella had a great birthday and that's what really mattered!
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