Santa Run

My nine year old, my seven year old, my three year old, and I ran the Opportunity Village Santa Run 5K yesterday (ok, the three year old rode in the stroller, I am not sadistic). The run happens in downtown Vegas every year. It is an annual attempt to break the world record for the most Santa's in one place at one time. Last year our entire family ran it (the photo from last year is below) and we broke the record, but it was broken again a few weeks later in Great Britan.

This year we had more participants than last year, but I have no idea if we broke the record again or not. The girls did great. We carried bells with us. I strapped a boom box to the stroller and played Christmas music throughout our run. People started running with us, commenting on how they appreciated the music. My daughters complaned the entire last mile that they would not be able to make it to the end, but as soon as it we crossed the finish line my girls begged me to take them on a walk of the Freemont Street Experience to gather all the freebie gifts and handouts that were available from all the sponsors of the event (as well as go into the blow up jump house that was set up on the Strip). They had a great time. Guess they had a few miles left in them after all.

It was a wonderful experience.

Camping in Pine Valley

Our family spent the second half of this week in Pine Valley. We camped in the South Juniper camp site. It was a pretty good set up. We rolled in Wednesday night and got set up at about 10:00 p.m. Thursday we got up and spent the day relaxing. I took my oldest fishing at the resevouir. The fishing was so so there, but down below the resevouir where it emptied in to the creek the fishing was AMAZING. There were two small pools at the base of the outlet that were both very hot. I would cast into one pool and get a strike, then cast into the next pool and get a strike. We were stricktly catch and release per Tiffany's orders.

Thursday night my oldest was attacked by mosquitos all night. She got over 40 bites!

Friday I ran 6.75 miles, which was no small feat given the altitude and the mountain roads I had to climb. Our family drove into a small town for supplies. We showered in a make shift structure of a tarp with some rope tied around three trees. Tiff set up a solar shower that got hot when left in the sun all day.

Friday evening a storm hit that dumped rain on us. Turns out our tent is pretty water tight so things were ok, but Tiff and I missed out on an evening in front of the fire that we were hoping for.

Saturday I did another 6.5 miles. We packed up and trucked back to Vegas.