super Saturday

Warning:  cell phone pictures ahead!

We had quite the packed day today.  We started off the day with a 5K for DaVita (the company Patrick works for).  The race was downtown and it finished at Coors Field where the Rockies play.

Emery was the only one in the family who didn’t run it and the girls did great (although there were a few tears when the race was a little longer than they thought it would be)!  Here’s the gang (minus me) during the national anthem:

Patrick and I had to slow our pace quite a bit, but it was fun to all cross the finish line as a family!  After the race, there was a sweet post-race party at Coors Field.  We got to meet the tooth fairy. . .

. . . and we all got more SWAG than we could handle.  Here is the haul from just ONE of the girls:

And then there was all the free food you could eat, including burgers, hot dogs, chips, frozen lemonade, and Blue Bell ice cream.  I’ve never been to a post-race party quite like it.  If you’re in Denver, I highly recommend doing this race next year.  Plus, it is for a great cause—helping to fight kidney disease in under-developed countries!

We left the race and went to check out Patrick’s new office a couple blocks away since they are moving into their brand new building next week.  There are some really cool design features in there so it was a lot of fun to see.

Then we had to rush off to what was next on the schedule for the day—a little dance recital.  Three teenage girls in our neighborhood put on a little dance camp this week and all three of our girls participated.  They all loved it and I loved having two hours each day to myself to go to the gym and get some errands like school shopping done!  The dance recital was cute—you’ll have to trust me on this one since I left the photo-taking up to Patrick!

Finally we went to the opening of a new park nearby.  They had some of the coolest playground equipment I’ve seen and the girls were impressed too.  Here’s a sampling:

This slide doesn’t look that cool but it was about two stories high.

This cement slide was SUPER fast!

Not sure was this spinning thing is called, but Emery liked it until she fell off!

I love how Kendall looks like she has antennae in this picture.

This swing was sweet and went crazy-high.  K & B could have stayed on that all day.

I didn’t get pictures of the rock climbing walls or the splash park or the huge ropes course area.  And then there are little fun facts about Colorado all throughout the park.  Totally check out Centennial Center Park if you’re in the area!  (We will be there again soon, I’m sure.)

Since it was the grand opening, they had a bunch of fun booths to visit (with even more SWAG to add to their collection for the day).  The girls were mesmerized by the lady with the horned owl.  Kendall especially loved it since she is really into the Guardians of Ga’hoole books, which are about owls. . . that are apparently trying to take over the world?  She knew exactly what kind of owl it was when she saw it!

And then Kendall won the hula hoop contest!  They kept trying to get her out by making her hop on one foot or spin around or clap her hands or stomp her feet, but she could NOT be stopped!

After dinner, we found a snake for the first time in the backyard, which fascinated the girls for a good 30 minutes.  The day ended with a short thunderstorm (including hail) and we sat out on the front porch to enjoy the cool air that had rolled in.

I love a day packed with fun like that, although I don’t think we could keep up that pace EVERY day.  No surprise that the girls all fell asleep in about 2.3 seconds tonight!