Here's our 12 man Hood to Coast team.  We were team Mustache.  Each van has 6 runners and we all run 3 legs to cover the 199 miles from Mount Hood to the beach at Seaside.

Here's our Van the morning of HTC.

And again up on the mountain.

And again on the start line...just a few more minutes to go.  Sarah's getting nervous, so are the rest of us.

Sarah's first leg was a Very Hard due to the rapid 2000 foot elevation drop over 5.64 miles.  The scenery is beautify though.  She did great.  The 2nd leg is the worst because you just ran your heart out and then sit in a car and your muscles tighten up.  It's hard enough to walk let alone run your second leg.  Sarah's 2nd leg was through the middle of scary downtown Portland for 7.3 miles at night, she handed off the baton at about 10:00 PM.  I finished my leg that night at 1:30 in the morning.  When we were all done with the 2nd leg we drove to the next exchange point excited to maybe get an hour or two of sleep before we started up again on our 3rd leg.  I was falling asleep at the wheal and turned the driving over to Bethany, we only had a few more minutes to the exchange.  But there was traffic problems and it ended up taking an hour or so.  We spread out a tarp and got in our sleeping bags or just sprawled out in the car for a little sleep.  Somehow the few minutes we got were enough to feel a lot better when Sarah started our 3rd leg off.  The 3rd leg was pretty exciting because when you were done, you were DONE!      

We relaxed on the beach and waiting for the other van to finish their 3rd leg so we could all run over the finish line together.  The weather was perfect.

The whole team at the finish line.  Our total time was 28 hours 56 minuets.  That's an average of an 8:43 min/mile over 199 miles.  Pretty awesome.     

We started talking "next year" on the way home.

Belly Flop Master

Turns out Noah is an expert belly flopper.

Portland

We went into Portland on Saturday to pick up our Hood To Coast packet and spend the rest of the day playing around in the city.

The light rail was fun.  We parked at Washington Park and went into the city from the the tunnel.

Arwen's knee walker didn't show up in time.  It was waiting when we got home so I pushed here around in a little stroller all day.  She was a little embarrassed but got over it I think.  

We watched some aerial acrobatics for a bit, pretty impressive stuff. 

Watched some fun street performances and wandered around the Saturday Market.  We haven't been there in a long time and it's sure grown.  Lot's of fun stuff.  The kids wanted everything.

I wish I knew how to weld.

Played in some new water fountains. 

 Drying off in the sun.  She was also very tired and ready for a nap.  But was energized after a nap on dads sholder and a little sea lioning in the sun.

 Noah was sure posing for the camera.

Not sure what the fake angry face was for.

 We all had a great day but Noah must have loved it the most.

Smith Rock

I took Noah on a camping and rock climbing adventure this last weekend and he and I had a lot of fun. 

First we hiked around Camp Kilowan mapping out the 5 mile 2nd year hike for Sarah.

 Then next day we drove over to Smith Rock to do some climbing.

Noah was really good.  I want to see what he can do in climbing shoes instead of his clodhopper tennis shoes.

Though he's a great climber repelling afterwards is still his favorite part.  We clocked in at over 15 miles of hiking for the two days.  Noah was amazed that he hiked that far without complaining.

Cold Christmas in Denver

We got a taste of the cold we were in for in Denver on the drive.  We thought -11º F was pretty bad but we hit -17º F or so on the way home.

We took a stop at Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls and had fun looking at all the frozen waterfalls and trying to break holes in a little frozen lake.

We did a little tennis shoe ice skating on a big patch of  ice on one of the overlooks.  Only a few crashes.

All in all the drive was nice.  The kids had their endless supply of movies and Sarah and I had audio books.  

The Box

It's still true, boxes are usually more fun to play with than whatever came in them.  

Noah and Joshua loved this box so much they built a bed out of it after playing with it.  Tonight we anticipated the E.R. as the kids road it down the stairs.  Every kid that was brave enough to take it from the top step ended up getting a little banged up.  But that didn't stop them from taking another turn.

Color Run

Arwen and I trained for a 5k together this year.  We decided to do the Color Run in Portland.  Well...let's be honest..."trained" may not be the best word.  But I did get Ar to run a couple of times with me.  I'm sure all her running at soccer helped prepare her.  

"When I first started running I was not very good at it.  When I ran my first practice 5k with Dad um...hey!...ha ha ha... (more giggles)...I was bad at it and I cried the whole time.  Well most of the time.  When I ran my second 5k with Mom and Dad it was easier but I still cried because I couldn't catch up to Mom and I was so tired.  Then I ran my Intel 5k, I walked most of the time.  On my fourth 5k I ran like I've been practicing my whole life.  It was the color run.  You got to get sprayed with color.  I had fun and ran fast with Mom."  ~Arwen

 There were over 75,000 runners, which made it pretty tricky to actually run, but having all those people out there made it really fun!

 At every kilometer of the 5 kilometer race, color throwers would throw a different color at you.  It tasted pretty nasty, but we could spit rainbows, which was totally awesome!  

 Pink was Arwen's favorite color.  After the race, there was a big after-party where each runner got a bag of color and we all grouped together and threw it all up in the air.  The little kids got to do this with us too.  Some nice people each gave the kids a bag, so they all got to throw some color.  

 Arwen and I had fun running it in our matching tu-tu's  It got so crowded that we held hands most of the time so as not to get separated.  But a couple of times we did, but we found each other quickly because of our tu-tu's.

 We left Aaron and the little kids at the end of the race course to take pictures of us.  Aaron moved the kids to the last color, which was yellow to get some pictures of us running through.  Noah was in heaven as yellow is his favorite color.

 The problem is, we totally missed them and they missed us.  Arwen and I wandered around for an hour after the race looking for them.  (We did get to participate in the after-party quite a few times because we couldn't find them, so that was fun.)

 Aaron got lots of pictures of the kids rolling in the yellow color.  I guess the kids were cracking the runners up and they kept stopping to take pictures of them with their phones.  

 Aaron finally realized that he missed us after the last runners made their way through and wandered back to our original meeting point to find us.

We had our final hurrahs then got blown off by a leaf blower and made our way home.  

(Apparently, this was Aaron's best pic of the day...he took it practicing for us to come through.  ha ha!)

Mummified Forest Creature

There was a forest behind a chain link fence next to the field that Arwen was playing soccer on.

It had a pad locked gate behind which a foot trail led off into the woods.  Noah tried to squeeze through a small gap between the gate and the fence but couldn't get his head through.  Larkin tried and couldn't make it through either until she realized that it widened slightly toward the ground.  She got through and took off saying, "Come on Noah."  I said he'd better go keep her safe and luckily he was able to squeeze through at the bottom as well or we might never have seen her again. It was a creepy forest.  Noah found some awesome treasures including this mummified forest creature.

First Day of School

School is here again and all the kids are excited.

Larkin is excited to start preschool and was asking about her uniform.  Poor little girl just misses the cutoff for this year.

Noah and Joshua are in the same class this year.  That will be so fun for them.  Noah is excited to show Joshua how fun Spanish School is.  We're hoping that between Noah's exuberance and Joshua's grumpiness, they'll keep each other balanced.  

Joshua came home and showed off a little Spanish after his first day.  He's doing great.  He told us he has crushes on three girls...cute girls equals a great school for Josh.  

Noah was pretty worried that the cute girl he had a crush on last year might have forgotten him  She didn't.  He was a happy camper.

Arwen, who was terrified to start a new school last year, was super excited to go back this year!  She has a great group of friends and a teacher she adores...and a crush.  Man, I need to watch out for all these Nielsen  kid and their crushes!