Stephen's Birthday

Stephen came up for his birthday weekend. We celebrated with chicken salad croissants for lunch (his and Patti's request - so yummy!!), a very fun game of Settlers of Catan while the kids napped (I totally recommend this game - it's awesome!), and then had a family dinner followed by presents and cake.

Stephen and his girlfriend Patti.

The kids didn't give Stephen much space as they "helped" him open his gifts. :)

The next day, Stephen ran his first half-marathon at the Capital City Marathon! With Kevin being gone fishing and me not being a morning person, I didn't know if I could pull off getting the kids and myself ready for church EARLY and get us downtown to see Stephen run in the morning before church. But I did it! First we went to a spot we had planned to meet Patti at...but Stephen ended up running a faster pace and had already passed us (I called him after awhile and he said he only had two miles to go until the finish line)! I was sooo bummed after all the work I'd gone to (but while we were there, two of my friends ran by that I didn't even know were running the race - too funny!). I had just moments to decide if I was going to throw the kids in the car, race to the finish line and see if we could spot Stephen before he finished. I decided to go for it. Knowing we had no time to spare, I literally dragged Ben along with one hand (he was crying, "You're going too fast, you're going too fast!") and pushing the stroller with Jake in it with the other hand (Abby was a great trooper and needed no help thankfully!). We ran a couple blocks and as we approached the throng of people along Capitol Way, I glanced up the hill and *boom* I saw him just a few feet away!! I grabbed my camera and was able to snap a few shots just as he ran by. We literally made it there without ONE second to spare and at the perfect moment. I couldn't believe it!  (and it made me feel a bit better about pushing Ben so hard! Ha!)

He ended up finishing 74th out of 1259 and had a 7:25-mile pace - not too bad for a first-timer! We were proud of him, but his "coach" (my 10-time marathoner sister Debbie) says he wasn't supposed to push himself so hard and that may make his marathon debut this coming weekend a bit harder to do. I imagine it was hard for him to try to pull himself back in all the excitement of his first race. We'll see what he says after this week's 26-mile marathon (these marathon members of my family are CRAZY! :).

Update: Stephen did his full marathon this past weekend with a time of 3 hours and 44 minutes! That's a 8:35 pace for 26.2 miles! Wow!