Strong Legs Race 2009

Last Saturday, several members of my family and I drove down to Atlanta to participate in the Strong Legs Run.  It is a race sponsored benefiting Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta which happens to be the hospital that I work for.  It is a great event with tons of fun family events.  I have done the 5K in the past, but since Mikayla has started joining in, we have started doing the 2K fun run.  Last year, I had to carry Mikayla the last half of the race.  This year, with a little encouragement, she finished the whole thing!  I was so proud of her and she was so excited that she beat all of us and “won” the race. :) This year my mother in law, sister and nephew joined us for the fun event.

Here is Mikayla playing a little put-put.  It looked a little more like shuffleboard to me, though. There was also a balloon artist there – as you can see the kids were enthralled with him.  I need him to come to my house because I can never captivate their attention like this for that long.  Mikayla also had an airbrushed tiger tattoo put on her hand.   She decided to have it look like "Daddy’s tiger” (also known as the LSU Tiger).  I was quite the proud daddy when he saw that.  There were also various mascots from local companies.  This one was definitely the most interesting one.  He is a natural gas flame from Georgia Natural Gas.  Wierd!He is my mini family pic.  Gavin, as you can tell, was in a fantastic mood.  He was a grump all day.  After the race, we went to the post-race booth and got some food.  Two bananas and part of a bagel later that boy was in a much better mood.  If I had known that was all it would take, I would have gone through MUCH sooner.  See how happy Mikayla is to have finished the race!  I hope to finish many more together and eventually graduate to the 5K with her.     Since the race was pretty early, we decided to have a “slumber party” at my parents house the night before.  Mikayla had been wanting to have one for quite a while so it was a perfect opportunity.  We set her up with her sleeping bag on some loveseat cushions on the floor in the family room.   Papa slept on the couch next to her.  I think they both enjoyed their sleepover. :)