Good times, good times.
The nearby town of Washington has a Cherry Festival every year in June, and we took part in the excitement for the first time since we’ve lived here. It runs from Wednesday evening to Saturday evening and boasts carnival rides, food booths, a petting zoo, free concerts and entertainment, a family bike ride, and a 5K race. Thursday was one of two armband nights for the rides, so, after ascertaining that the weather would be good, I bought the kids armbands in advance (saving us $5 apiece), and we joined some friends at the festival.
It was PACKED. And my understanding is that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Charlotte and her friend Anna wanted to ride all of the scariest, most exciting rides, so they stood in very long lines. Elijah joined them eventually, and I think that Charlotte rode five rides before we ran out of time. Elijah rode a few more, as the kiddie rides were not as crowded, but he’s as much of an adrenaline junkie as Charlotte is, so those didn’t last very long for him.
Both kids and Anna went into the petting zoo, which boasted an alpaca, a donkey, goats, a calf, chickens, an enormous rabbit, and a miniature potbelly pig. Additional potbelly piglets were for sale in separate cage, and they were about the cutest things in the world.
Jeremy hung out in the Snugli for most of the evening, although I ended up taking him to the car about 30 minutes before Jeff and the other two kids came with a funnel cake. Jeremy enjoyed the flashing lights, but, after three hours of them with only a brief nap, he was done.
Of course, Charlotte and Elijah both had a blast.
On Saturday morning, Charlotte and Jeff ran their first 5K ever at the Cherry Festival. The weather was drizzly, but that’s preferable to beating-down sun! Our friends, the Pughs, live along the race course and close to the starting line, so we went there at 7:00 a.m. and then headed out to watch and cheer on Charlotte, Jeff, and the rest of the kids’ running group with whom Charlotte and Jeff had been training.
After the runners passed us here, we hoofed it over to the finish line to watch from there. The clock was around 25 minutes, so we were all chit-chatting and not paying much attention to the finishers. I figured that Charlotte might be crossing the line around 28 or 29 minutes, given her training runs. Suddenly, my friend Saundi said, “Here comes Charlotte!”
I almost missed getting her picture.
Charlotte posted a time of 26:23…unbelievable! After Jeff finished, he started watching the times that were posted and saw that Charlotte had finished second in the 10 and under girls’ age group! We stuck around for the awards ceremony, and here is Charlotte getting her medal and showing it off.
Here are the five kids from the running group who participated in this race. They all did a fantastic job.
Since race entry included a pancake and sausage breakfast hosted by the Rotary Club, we all headed there next and enjoyed that before the rain drove us all home!
However, this is not the end of this story, thrilled as we all were by Charlotte’s second place finish. The rain stopped for the afternoon, and Charlotte headed to a Sunday school farewell picnic for the fifth graders in her class who will be moving up to the youth group. Toward evening, Jeff got online to check the official results of the race and discovered that Charlotte had NOT placed second, as was announced at the awards ceremony, but had actually placed FIRST!
I hadn’t thought that I had seen any other little girls finish before Charlotte, but I also hadn’t been paying that close of attention. We all thought it was a little weird that the first place finisher hadn’t stuck around for her award, but stranger things have happened.
We’re not sure exactly what happened. The girl whom they had ranked first at the end of the race actually finished at around 33 minutes and wasn’t even in the top three. We’re guessing there must have been a computer glitch or a misassigned electronic shoe tag. Who knows?
In any case, Charlotte finished first! So far, she has run two races and has won both of them for her age group and gender. I guess I need to quit telling her not to expect to win every race she runs! Hopefully, we can help her avoid a big head!
Around the kids’ bedtime on Saturday evening, the village weather siren went off, which means that tornadoes had been spotted nearby and that we needed to seek shelter immediately. Jeff grabbed the guinea pigs, I grabbed the baby and his paraphernalia, and the kids grabbed their library books, and we hustled into the basement.
We turned on the TV, and, sure enough, some really bad storms were moving through the area. Before the evening was finished, the downtown area of Elmwood, which is west of Peoria, had been leveled. Charlotte’s friend Anna, who was with us at the Cherry Festival on Thursday, lives there. Her dad is a pastor at our church. Fortunately, their home had minimal damage, but buildings half a block away were totally destroyed. Miraculously, no one was injured, unlike in Ohio later that evening.
Check out this YouTube video. This was the twister that went into Elmwood.
A tornado went straight up the highway that is about a quarter of a mile from our house, but we only had lightning, thunder, and rain. It was kind of scary, though.
And that’s our weekend. We were glad to spend Sunday relaxing and recovering!
And as I would be remiss not to include Jeremy in this post…here he is, enjoying some tummy time.
Have a good one!
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