puh-TAY-duh

This past weekend we headed up to Potato Land (pronounced puh-TAY-duh land), aka Idaho.  It was a crazy but fun weekend.  

Shortly after running his first marathon, Anthony was convinced by his sister, Camille, to run yet another one (only four short weeks later) in Boise.  The Great Potato Run!  And when I say shortly after, I mean like the next day.  He was talked into it the very next day.  Or maybe it was two days... hmmm, can I get a ruling on that?  In any case, he was still walking like he'd been riding a horse for three days straight so I was surprised that he was so quick to agree.  

Camille has been running marathons for years now and it's no big deal to her.  Anthony is a newborn in the marathon world, apparently a very eager newborn.  So, we headed up there to the land of puh-TAY-duhs.  

There are a gazillion pictures below so if you're not a picture person, this may not be the post for you.  56 is the new gazillion, right?  

Little B getting restless, shortly into our road trip.

And C admiring all the cows and horses along the way.  He thought that was the coolest thing ever.

The girls in the back, watching Mary Poppins.

Our first pit stop.  I decided to take a pic of B and me.  I'm always behind the camera, never actually in the pics unless I take them myself.

...or if I demand that Anthony take one of our sandwich shop.  I wasn't trying to get him to take one of me.  I just thought it was funny that we were making sandwiches in the back of the car.  Usually we stop and get icky fast food.  But NO MORE! 

I asked Anthony to 'help' B eat his PB&J but his idea of 'helping' is just to hand it to him.  It's one thing in a high chair at home.  The carseat is another story. 

We took a second pit stop because C insisted, "Mom, I need a poop!"  But when Anthony took him in, he just peed.  TMI?  Sorry...

THIS was our third pit stop because C still insisted he needed to go... once again he only tinkled.  And the man working here was ornery and ignorant.  "Way to teach your kid to freeload!"  He said that because the sign on the door said "Restrooms for paying customers only"  Ok, I totally understand that but c'mon, the kid is three years old, first of all, and second, he didn't know that Anthony was already planning on buying a water after bringing C back to the car because he forgot to take his wallet in.  Some people...  But hey, his llamas are cool, no? 

I tried to get a pic of ALL of us, too bad the boys don't have giraffe necks in order to peek out from the restraint of their harnesses.  Or maybe a 'Go-go Gadget NECK'.  Does anyone remember that show?

He was soooo sleepy but didn't sleep a wink!

But as soon as we got to Camille's house....

So all of the above stuff was from Friday... Saturday was the marathon.  Camille and Danny live at the top of the hill overlooking part of the course.  This is taken as they ran by.  Do you see them?  I didn't think so.  I promise they are there.  See the big green bush in the middle of the pic?  Just to the left at the top of the bush... teeny, tiny white speck... that's Anthony.  Camille is in orange right next to him but she's much harder to see.  This is about mile 5 or 6.

Now we are at the finish line, Ann Morrison Park.  That's little A waiting in line for the restroom.  I swear to you after this line died, no one had to go.  Everyone needed to go all at once.  Why is that?

I followed C around with the camera just to keep him occupied.  Plus, I'm just super excited about having my camera back. :)

A nice lady was kind enough to let C take her dog on a short stroll. 

That's Danny, Camille's hubby, whose home we invaded for the weekend.  And trust me, we are a big feat for anyone to take on!  But they survived us and we were able to enjoy his fantastical cooking abilities.  He really should own a restaurant. 

And here he is!!  The man of the hour... or the man of the 3rd hour.  Official time was 3:57:42.  He beat his first time by a good 6 minutes and made his goal of 4 hours or less.
 

I wanted to take pics of him at the finish line but no sooner had I taken these pics and announced to C that Daddy was right there, than C took off after some random guy on a bike with a trailer (for kids) behind it. He went running off yelling, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" I think when I announced Daddy was here, he looked and saw the bike and trailer, and I can't tell you how much he looooves riding in those trailers, he assumed that was Daddy. So, instead of taking pics of Anthony at the finish, I opted to run after my son who was trying to adopt another Daddy.



And THIS is what he got after all that running... NO POTATOES!  Camille had been talking up the potatoes at the finish all this time and they ran out.  RAN OUT!!!!!  Can you believe it!  Kind of silly.  We're in the potato capital of the world and they ran out. 


However, they did have one potato reserved for Anthony... the one with the blue ribbon stating that he finished first in his age division.  He was stoked! 

And here's Camille about to cross the finish line.  The poor girl had had almost no sleep for the two days before because she had to work and didn't have the energy to finish it as quickly as she normally does but she finished.  That is a feat in itself in my book. 

We're pretty sure B is going to grow up to be a dentist.  He loves playing in people's mouths.  Gross?  Maybe. 

See what I mean?

If I'm going off of body language, I think he's saying... "Help, I'm stuck!"

I think Anthony can officially be called a Potato Head now.

Oh how I wish I would have had Anthony and Camille pucker their lips.  :(

This is where Anthony is telling Camille the story about how he learned that he had won his age division.  She hadn't crossed the finish line yet so she needed to be informed. 

And this is Camille getting excited as Anthony says, "Oh, NO WAY!"  Really.  That's what he's saying right here.

But if you want it to be a more exciting caption, we could say that Camille is either lifting her arm and Anthony is appalled by the stench, or maybe she hasn't shaved for several months.....

And now he's relieved to not be smelling/seeing it anymore. 

Camille and Anthony needed to cool off and relax their aching muscles after the marathon so we went swimming.

B loved it!

And just to prove that I was there....