
It's still Wednesday somewhere, right?
The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is a huge event, with more than 100 races worldwide this Mother's Day weekend. Violet's Uncle Mat's mom, Jamie, is a breast cancer survivor, and Violet and I were honored to participate yesterday as members of her team.
We met Aunt Kristin, Uncle Mat, Grandma and Grandpa and more of Jamie's friends and family at her house Saturday morning, where Jamie supplied us with plenty of fuel for the race: breakfast sandwiches hot off the griddle and even powdered donuts (my favorite!). The one mile walk from Jamie's to the starting line was a great warmup for most of us; I let Violet conserve her energy riding on my back. The race got underway not long after our arrival, and once the hard-core contenders were out of the way, we joined the crowd and took off!
We had all signed up for the 5k walk, and at the outset, it looked doable. I had my Connecta (buckle-tai type for the baby-carrier set) carrier with me, so Violet could ride on my back as soon as she got tired. But she didn't get tired. She ran, and ran, and ran. Just not always in the same direction. We lost Kristin and Mat and the rest of the group early on, but my mom (hard to get used to calling her Grandma!) and I accompanied Violet as she ran up one side of the street and down the other, over and over.
I doubt we covered more than half a mile, but we really covered that stretch. Violet finally wore herself out, and sprawled out in the street to rest.
We had a ton of fun, but even more than that, I was just moved to be a part of it all. The sheer number of people who come out to support the fight against breast cancer, and the enthusiasm of everyone there is a really powerful thing to experience. We're already looking forward to next year.
We celebrated Easter today the way I always loved to growing up: with an egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Violet was a natural at finding eggs and adding them to a basket . . . just not necessarily her own. She shared her stash with everyone in attendance - Grandma and Grandpa ("PaPa"), Aunt Kristin and Uncle Mat, Mama and Dada.
No doubt we had as much fun watching her as she had on her hunt. And fortunately, the festivities aren't over yet! Grandma and Grandpa will join us again tomorrow for the East Foothills Toddler Care egg hunt that was rained out on Friday. Violet may not have had much competition today, but tomorrow will be a different story. Twelve toddlers, two hundred or more eggs . . . this should be good.
Violet loves music, and loves to dance to it. We have tunes playing on the iPod system in the kitchen just about every night while Violet eats dinner - if we forget she's sure to remind us to put on her favorite song. Dance moves at the dinner table are pretty standard at our place. A couple of weeks ago, we were listening to a new Putomayo CD we'd recently picked up (World Playground) as she dined, and she couldn't resist this Celtic song:
(Having finally worked out the kinks to the process of posting video, I wanted to share this clip. We're really not much into videography, though - I promise I have no intentions of incessantly posting footage of Violet's every adorable antic.)
We bought our first digital video camera about a year ago, but it hasn't yet seen much use. With the SLR ever-present, it's just been easy to overlook. We're trying to make more of an effort these days. This age is just so entertaining!
Beyond just remembering to utilize this additional piece of equipment, though, there was the matter of figuring out how the hell to get what we did shoot onto the computer, and eventually onto the blog. It may not be rocket science, but it does take a little time, and with a full time job, a fledgling law firm, a photography habit, and a toddler, it took us a while to get to it. But we worked it all out this weekend, and we're excited to share some footage of Violet in action on her skis as an introduction to the video element of the blog. Grab some popcorn and enjoy!