My friend Ann is a great mom, runner, PTO treasurer, organizer of the charity fun run the Turkey Trot, and so much more. Well, we hatched a plan to do some fun runs with our kids over the summer. When we realized we’d both be around over break, we decided to hatch a plan to test it out sooner. I got my old jogging stroller fixed up (5,000 miles and lots of salt water had done it in – no brakes, flat tires, rust everywhere) to be our sag wagon for hoodies, Gatorade, phones, sunglasses, loot (rewards for after the jog), etc. We also thought it would be fun to allow the younger or slower ones to hitch a ride in the “stagecoach” now and again. The hare can push the tortoise 🙂 When we did rider swaps, we did it fast – like on John Butterfield’s first overland mail stagecoach run – go go go! Only time to change out horses every 15 miles…no rest for the driver! Sometimes two kids were stacked up. It was hilarious. As we loped around the 1.5 mile trail through the park on our first lap, we collected Ben’s friend Cole and his mom, Lisa. Into our second lap we collected a barefooted Finn and his mom, Brie! It was really a crazy parade then as Cole had a notepad and a pen (to document the silliness?), and Lisa was carrying an “official dodge ball”! Afterwards we enjoyed some ice cream drumsticks and a romp in the playground while the sun held. Enjoy the shots – it was a good time!

Evelyn is a smart girl! She was so sweet, waving to everyone like the Rose Queen in the Rose Parade!

We thought we were done because I forgot that we’d started in a different spot than usual. Sam reminded us that we were half a lap short – wow, talk about honesty! So we took off again and finished off our 5K!

And here they all are, wonderful joggers! That was fun!

Well deserved naughty treats!

Lisa joined in with a dodge ball in hand! Go Lisa!

Finn joined in, no shoes! Go, Hawaiian boy!

Will took everyone for a flight. He’s deep inside the plane in the cockpit.

This is seriously ominous sky behind us, but we really enjoyed hanging out together. Those ominous skies kept EVERYONE else out of the park. We were the only ones left to enjoy the narrow swath of sun over Bainbridge.