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On Sunday, April 29th I ran in the Kids 4 Kids 10K to benefit the Children's Cancer Research Fund. This was my fourth race in my attempt to ran twelve races (at 10K or half marathon distance) in twelve months (one per month). It was a warm morning in Downtown Los Angeles for this flat, mostly there and back, double-looped run. Figuring that a lot of people would be doing the 5K walk (that started at the same time) for charity I actually started not too far from the front. It took me 15 seconds to get to the start line and then I was off. My goal was to do a sub-hour 10K. I got through the first 5K in about 28 minutes. In the second lap I seemed to be on pace with a boy next to me and we got to talking. He was 13 years old and in his third 10K. He had never run one in less than an hour before, so I promised I would get him to the finish in under an hour. About a quarter mile before the finish line he was feeling good and so took off to finish about a minute ahead of me. I finished officially in 58 minutes and 25 seconds. Turned out I was 5th in my division (women between the ages of 30 and 39) and was only 11 seconds short of being 4th! Okay so there were only 37 women in that group, but still I am slightly amazed. I was only two spots away from getting a special medal! |
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On Monday, April 23, Henry's school was off for a staff development day (or everyone recover from the Peace Trip day). As this was an odd vacation day that other schools didn't have off, I decided it would be another good day to go to the Disney theme parks.
We spent most of the day at California Adventure. When we arrived we went straight to the Playhouse Disney stage show. Was worried that Archie wouldn't be interested as he was not into the warm-up at all, but as soon as the lights dimmed and Mickey Mouse appeared on stage, he was hooked.
Archie ate some snacks as we made our way to "A Bug's Life" area. Rode on Heimlich's Chew-Chew Train first and then Flik's Flyers -- both boys especially enjoying the latter.
Then we were thinking about lunch -- I ordered three chicken taco kids meals. Archie ate the chicken out of Henry's tortilla. Henry ate his tortilla with Spanish rice in it, so I had the two remaining tacos. I will definitely get the adult chicken tacos next time as they come with the fixings and the kids' meals didn't.
After lunch we walked around to King Triton's Carousel. Then we waited in a long line for Toy Story Mania. Archie was antsy in line and so I tried letting him look at the iPad, but it was too difficult for him to use it and hold it and try to move with the line. I had to put it away and Archie got so annoyed he protested loudly and threw his body backward, hitting his head on a post. So he was pretty ornery about that (and lack of iPad) until we got where he could see the ride moving. Once he became interested in that, he was okay and then had fun on the ride. Henry scored over 30,000 points and I was over 60,000.
We walked a little after that and got Archie to sleep in Bob. Henry got a bag of cotton candy, which he'd been wanting to have for a few weeks and we couldn't find at the various places we had been visiting.
Wandered over to the Hollywood Backlot area and into the animation building. We watched the animations for a while and then decided to check out the Sorcerer's Workshop, which we had never been to before. In the first room, we got to look at some zoetropes. I copied out a Mickey Mouse head-shaped balloon animation and then we tried it out in one of the zoetropes. Really enjoyed doing that, I made an animation!
The next room had magic books where Henry answered questions to learn that the Disney character he is most like is Jiminy Cricket (Henry -- a voice of logic and reason?)! then we went into the cave of Ursula the Sea Witch. We read dialogue from a scene from Beauty and the Beast and then it replayed the scene using our voices. Then we sang the chorus of "Hakuna Matata" and it played animation with our voices again. Guess we made too much noise as Archie woke up while we were doing this.
Thought Archie needed to move around after his nap, so headed to the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail next. Archie really liked going down the Rock Slide, and did so several times.
Then the boys climbed up the rope net ramps. Henry encouraging Archie the whole way and congratulating him and sounding proud as Archie made it to each new level. This was very sweet to see as it has taken a long time to get Henry to really interact with Archie in a positive way. Spent quite a while playing around in this area. Here are the boys crossing the nets...especially tricky for Archie as his feet still fit easily through those holes.
Next we had our first time on Ariel's Undersea Adventure ride. Hard to believe the building used for this ride used to house a movie theater. The ride is reminiscent of those in Fantasyland, which you get in a vehicle (clam shell) and then tour around to see the Cliff's Notes version of the story.
It was early evening at this point and we had done most of what we could do in California Adventure and were thinking about dinner. Decided to go over to Disneyland and had dinner at the Pizza Port. Spaghetti for Henry, a salad for me, and Archie and I shared the personal-sized pizza.
We went on Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters while the parade was on, which meant we had almost no wait in line. Next we went on the Storybook Boats, where Henry got to sit on the very front of the boat and very seriously pointed out the little settings while the tour guide talked about them.
Only about a half hour before the park was to close (at 9pm) and we managed to get on to "It's a Small World" ride. Henry really likes these boat rides. Archie was dancing around while we were on this one. When we came out we had time for one last favorite, King Arthur's Carousel. We were walking down Main Street on our way out as they announced that the park attractions were closing (though the Main Street shops would be open for another hour). Yes, Henry can spend a whole day at Disney and still look full of energy at almost 9pm!
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Friday, April 20, Henry got out of school at noon as his school prepared for the annual Peace Trip. We took advantage of the extra time off to Culver City and get haircuts from Ida. Henry and I got haircuts, but she had a really hard time trying to cut Archie's hair. He was not only veering away this time but also lifting his hands up to try to swat her away. So he ended up only having the bangs trimmed and a little off the bottom at the back. It looks like Archie is going to be one of those little kids with long hair or a bad haircut, as I think at some point I'm going to have to cut his hair some time while he is asleep.
Saturday, April 21 was the main day of the Peace Trip. We ended up getting out of the house only about 15 minutes later than we planned; however, due to bad traffic on the way up, we arrived at the first meeting place, Manning Park (group area) in Montecito, CA about an hour after we had wanted to arrive. I dropped all the boys off at the park and drove a couple blocks north to the Pierre LaFond deli to buy us lunch. Very yummy food from there, so definitely will be going there next year. Henry did not particularly like the flatbread pizza, but I thought it was delicious. Mostly Henry played at the park with all of his school friends while Ben, Archie and I ate food. Completely forgot to take photos while we were at the park...too busy eating.
Then it was on to the La Casa de Maria Retreat Center for the whole school peace ceremony in the Sadako Peace Garden. Each of the school classes performed a song: the Explorer class sang a revised version of "Down by the Riverside," the Discoverer class (Henry's class) sang "The World Is a Rainbow," the Investigators sang "Winds of Change," and the Voyagers sang "Shower the People You Love (with Love)." Here is the photo of the Discoverers, Henry is third from the left.
After each class sang, then the Investigators and Voyagers joined together to sing "Thousand Paper Cranes". It sounded really great this year. Then Henry helped with hanging the paper cranes in the garden, which I think always looks so much more special with the cranes in it.
One of the cranes got loose from its string, ready to fly away.
Soon it was time to leave the Peace Garden and while the other families went to the camp site, we went to our hotel, the Hampton Inn in Goleta, to check in. After a brief time in the room organizing, eating snacks, and figuring out what we wanted with us, we stopped at Ralph's for some food to share and headed to the Ocean Mesa camp site across from El Capitan State Beach ourselves. This site had a community swimming pool, so Henry joined most of the school kids in swimming, while Ben watched him and Archie and I played on the camp sites play structure. Eventually the swimming finished and the grilling began and people gathered around the campfire to eat and chat. The evening was cold and overcast, with low clouds, and it was almost drizzling at times, yet we all had fun despite the weather. Henry made smores over one of the outer fire pits. Here he is toasting a marshmallow.
We donned extra layers of clothes and munched on food from the pot luck table. Rick gave his banana boat making demonstration, which we were all sworn to secrecy about. This is the Voyager teacher and head of the school, Rick Sharp. All the light circles in the photo must be from the mist, that or my camera is picking up on Rick's magic aura. Pretty sure it's the mist.
Then he and Cecilia got out guitars and led us in songs for nearly two hours. Eventually Henry fell asleep in his chair. Archie was kept happy, busy and warm with the iPad for a ridiculously long period of time. We finally left the place around 10:30pm. Both boys were asleep in the car ride to the hotel and transferred fairly easily to the hotel beds.
Next morning got up early for breakfast and then I went for a fantastic long run (9 miles) along the Obern bike trail, which runs close to the hotel and is one of the reasons I wanted to stay at that hotel again. Ben took Henry and Archie back to the camp site for further socializing, but even though they got there around 9am, people were already packing up to leave. Still they ended up hanging around for about an hour. I returned to the hotel and showered and at about the same time, Ben got a phone call that he was needed at work. So unfortunately we had to cut our trip short (scrap our plan to go to the Natural History Museum) and head home. Both boys fell asleep in the car on the way home, so even though it was around lunch time while we were driving, we just drove straight on and got home by 1pm.
The boys and I went grocery shopping that afternoon at Trader Joe's...reminder...do not ever do that again on a Sunday afternoon, it was crazy busy there. The upshot of coming home early was that it gave Henry some time to work on building his Lego Train, which was the group gift he got from his classmates for his birthday party. Here he is just finishing the train and about to put together the track.
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Sunday morning, April 16, decided somewhat spontaneously to go to the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire. We had been planning on going some time during its run this year, but weren't sure when. The weather turned out to be perfect and kids got in free that day. When we arrived we were all a little bit hungry and it was almost Archie's lunch time, so headed straight for the food. Remembered the yummy stuff we had last year, so I got a crepe with strawberries and whipped cream, Henry got a cream puff, and Ben was looking for something more substantial, so had a sausage roll.
Then we took the boys over to the Kids Kingdom to play for a while. Ben and Henry played a ring toss game, while Archie really enjoyed playing the blocks.
Both of the boys dug around in a sand pit trying to find buried treasure. Then Henry and I went into the games tent area and one of the guys taught Henry how to play Nine Men's Morris.
While Henry was busy with that, Archie was busy playing with a wooden castle, knights and horses play set on a table outside the tent. Mostly playing with the horses though. Did I mention he loves horses?
Next up was show time, we went to see the Magnificent Humble Boys, a pretty funny show that we also saw last year. We wandered around a bit afterward, eventually going to the coin tent for Ben to ask about a coin he had, which turned out to be a museum copy. While there, Henry learned all about the counting board and did some addition with the man who was working there.
As we wandered around we caught the end of the Kondor Brothers juggling show. Next it was time for ice cream cones for Henry and I and a frozen peach for Ben. About this time Archie fell asleep in Bob, so we were looking for things to do while he was asleep that wouldn't wake him up. Henry saw one of those Bungee Trampoline things and really wanted to do it. So he had his first time trying that and had a blast.
Next, Henry had a pony ride. Then we decided to go see the Moonie show. Archie woke up just as it started, because Moonie communicates by whistling, which basically acted as an alarm clock for Archie. Finally, we decided to eat some food before leaving, so I had a chicken sandwich and a smoothie, Henry had bread and cheese, and fries, and Archie had bits of our food and also drank a lot of milk. Then Henry and I raced each other around the picnic tables a few times. On the way out, we stopped briefly to watch a glass blowing demonstration and that concluded our day at the Faire.
All the pictures from April have now been loaded into the Deane Photos 2012 (March to April) flickr album, though I still need to blog about the rest of our activities that month. |
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