5th place and a freebie

Our family attended a 3K race last Friday, hosted through the kids' Elementary school. I attended the same school as a kid and always enjoyed participating, so was anxious for my kids to all be old enough to be involved as well. It POURED down rain for the bulk of the race, so I'm sure a lot of people who had signed up didn't end up attending, but I figured I'd spent enough money to enter that we were going no matter what, and would just make an adventure out of it! The kids had a GREAT time. I am in far worse shape than I thought, and can't even really blame my SLOW final score on slow-poke Connor, though he definately contributed! LOL We're discussing "training" for next year. And putting in an order for better weather, too!

Dan tried to talk me out of letting the kids stay for the awards ceremony stating there's no way we won anything anyway (he wasn't feeling much of the adventure in this whole ordeal), but I figured we may as well get the full experience, and cheer on the winners whether we won or not. It's a good thing we stayed because Mr. Jared won 5th place for Kindergarten boys! We'd made a big deal to the kids that there's no way we won and to just be happy for the people that DID win, and remember how much fun we had, so we were ALL very surprised that Jared got a ribbon. I'd purposely not taken a camera with me, knowing the weather, and not wanting it banging around on my chest as I ran/jogged/walked, but I am really kicking myself for not having it!! The look on J's face was PRICELESS!!! He was so stunned, and totally confused as to what he needed to do. Everyone got a nice chuckle of out it. It was SOOO cute/funny!!! He's very proud (as am I!) of his 5th place ribbon.

Connor, the second he crossed the finish line, was telling everyone how he "won the finish line" was going to get his trophy. He planted himself right in front of the trophy table and kept asking the people "Is that going to be my trophy?" "When are you going to give me MY ribbon?" "Are you going to call my name next?" etc etc etc. We tried to move him away from the table, but the people handing out awards waved us off and said he was totally fine right where he was. At the VERY end, one of the ladies came up and wanted to know his name and age because he was so adorable and they wanted to give him award. SO, they made a final announcement that Connor had "won" the preschool division and gave him a first place ribbon. LOL!!! Oddly enough, they didn't even acknowledge preschoolers in the award giving!!! They gave out first, second, and third place awards for men's and women's categories separately in age 50+, 40-49, 30-39, 20-29, high school, middle school, then started from Kindergarten and went up through Fifth Grade, giving awards to the top six boys and top six girls for each grade. If you're going to give awards to the 50+ people for doing the race, give some credit to the not-quite four year old who did the whole thing, too! SO, while I'm not sure I agree with giving the kid a ribbon because he was nagging them for one, a part of me feels justified that he got SOMETHING because he was one of very few kids his age that wasn't being shoved along in a stroller!!!