Breakfast of Champions

This was the week the famous Wellsville Mile was run.  It was the 34th running of the mile and 1,300 4th and 5th graders from 9 elementary schools converged in Wellsville for the event. It was a perfect weather day for all of the young athletes, sunny and 51 degrees.  Not too hot, not too cold.  It felt warmer than low 50's to me so the sun was definitely out.   Jenna decided she wanted to beat her time from last year and worked really hard on all of their training runs at school.  On the day of the event I could see she was nervous and excited to go out there and have a good run.  Here she is with some friends before the race.

The girl on the left is Gracie, her best friend.  Gracie is the smallest girl in the class, Jenna is the tallest girl in the class.  They make quite the pair.

All of the 4th grade girls were divided into 3 heats which they qualified for on a training run at school.  The 1st heat is the slowest heat, the 2nd heat is the middle heat and the 3rd heat is the fastest heat.  Jenna was given the option of running in the 2nd or 3rd heat.  She decided to run in the 2nd heat.  Last year she ran in the 1st heat and finished her mile in 8:24.  Her goal was to beat her time and run under 8 minutes.

Lining up at the starting line

There were over 100 girls in her heat

Waiting for the gun.

The go around the block 2 times and when we saw the runners after their first lap I was quite surprised to see Jenna in 2nd place!  One of the high school cross country runners was pacing her.

I ran down to the finish line and waited for the runners to come into view.  Coming into the finish line Jenna was still in 2nd place!

She held on strong and finished in 2nd place with a time of 7:24, a full minute faster than last year!  She was absolutely thrilled with her time since she had worked so hard.  We watched the 3rd heat and saw that if she had run in that heat she would have done really well and finished in the top 20 or 25. She made a goal and achieved it and had a GREAT Wellsville Mile.  Just in case you are interested the winning boys time was 5:50 and the winning girls time was 6:20.  That's pretty fast. The girl who won the whole thing is in Jenna's class at school and was diagnosed with skin cancer just days before the race.  Her last day of school was Friday and her surgery is on Tuesday.  We are hoping that good news comes out of the surgery and she will be on her way to a full recovery. 

We got an invitation in the mail for the "Breakfast of Champions" for middle school students who achieved a 4.0 during the school year and their parents.  For the 6th graders it was at 8 a.m. on Thursday at the school. That morning I had just gotten home from a ride and still needed to get the girls off to school so Adam went with Britton on his way to work thinking it was just some cinnamon rolls and would be quick.  When he got there he realized that it was a little more formal than that.  The tables were full and they had speakers and program and then the cinnamon rolls.  They gave each of the students a box of Wheaties with their picture on it and a medal.

The Breakfast for the 7th graders started at 6:30 a.m. Yikes.  I guess we will have that to look forward to next year.

Yesterday was Britton's last soccer game of the season and since his team will be undergoing some changes next year it was his last game with this group of boys.  The game was in Bountiful and I thought it would nice if the entire family went to his last game to support him.  It was great in theory, but once we got there and the girls were grumpy and bored and Jameson didn't get his full nap and wasn't being very cooperative and it was super hot sitting in the sun we were second guessing ourselves. Fortunately a trip to Costco and a churro for every kid did wonders and they decided it wasn't such a bad day after all.

Jameson's new favorite thing is to take off his clothes and diaper and run around in the buff.  At home it is one thing but out in our cul-de-sac it is becoming quite a problem.  Oh, and sometimes his diapers are stinky when he takes them off. Fun stuff.  We already had a problem with keeping his shoes and socks on, but as you can see it is spiraling out of control.  Hey, the kid loves his freedom, we're just not sure what to do about it. Sorry, no picture for this paragraph. :-)

Our 13 year old next door neighbor was involved in an accident last week that will have permanent consequences.  He was with his friends and they decided to make a bomb with an empty CO2 cartridge and black powder.  He has always been a thrill seeker so it was no surprise to his mother that he was the one who volunteered to light it and throw it.  Unfortunately it exploded before it was away from his hand and he lost 2 fingers on his right hand from the knuckle up. The Doctors are hopeful they saved his thumb, but it isn't out of the woods yet.  They basically had to piece it back together and if it gets infected or is bumped too hard he will lose it. The night it happened Adam went up to the hospital at midnight to give him a blessing after he came out of surgery.  It has been devastating and I've felt so so sad for him.  I'm good friends with his mother and we've watched him grow up these last 5 1/2 years and the whole thing has really affected me.  There are lessons to be learned from this and I know a lot of kids have been affected, too.  Hopefully some future catastrophe will be averted because they will remember this experience and STOP before doing something stupid. His Mom's facebook post was simply, "The hardest thing about being a Mom is watching your child make a poor choice and knowing there is NOTHING you can do about the consequences." Well said.