Adventuring in Seattle and Free Food!

The kids didn't have school on Monday so we went to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle to use our family membership for the last time before it expired.  We also used our free movie passes that came with our membership to see a 3-D movie for free.  (Are you seeing a theme yet?) The museum wasn't crowded at all, Henry loved growling at the dinosaurs, and our friends randomly joined up with us as well so we had some good times.  Henry lasted about five minutes in the movie theater but other than that, the day was successful, including finding cheap street parking.  I love that!

You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to get all the kids to look at me with their 3D glasses on.  Clearly the girls cooperated.

Free food always tastes best!

I told the boys I'd take them out to lunch and my friend couldn't believe we'd never tried Shake Shack.  So away we went and we scored great parking there too.  Truly it was a good day to find parking in Seattle.
We went inside the restaurant only to see a long line of customers and absolutely nowhere to sit.  A very friendly worker saw my herd of boys and offered to bring us some fries while we waited in line.  Minutes later she returned with a tray full of fries, different dipping sauces, and the best fried chicken bites I've ever had.  We were in heaven and honestly could've gotten by with just that tray of food.  Landon and Ethan kept saying, "I can't believe this is all free!"  I'm sure all the people in line behind us were wondering why we got such royal treatment but I was the only person in that packed place that had kids with me so I guess that's why.  And I didn't even have Marcus with me so our circus show wasn't nearly as impressive.  Eventually we did get some food that I actually paid for and it was delicious and the shakes were yummy and now the boys say the Shake Shack is their favorite place to eat and can we eat there on their birthday?  Good times.

Landon flossing on the streets of Seattle

 Two thumbs up for Shake Shack.  But if you don't get any free food you'll probably think it's good but not that good, however, the Ball family will always love it tremendously. 

Runners Take Your Mark!

Marcus ran his first 5K with me.  He did a great job, finishing in 25 minutes.  He has been training for a few weeks and watching him run past the house checking his pace on the Garmin was one of the cutest things to see.  I think he was motivated by the independence of running through the neighborhoods by himself. 
Running with him brought back memories of running my first 5K with my mom when I was ten years old.  We had been training for a long time because my mom was not a runner.  She'd get my older sister and I out of bed each morning at 6:30 to run a couple miles.  We didn't have a fancy GPS watch to tell us how far or how fast we were going, we ran in ugly old sweats, and when it got cold we wore our bulky winter coats.  It's a good thing it was dark so no one could see us!  But my mom didn't care about all that.  She just wanted us to exercise, especially since my older sister was a little on the pudgy side.  {I can say that because now she is not only the opposite of pudgy, she's a running machine and has probably run about ten marathons and is super fit.}  Back to my story. . . we registered for the Salt Lake City Classic Memorial Day 5K.  The farthest we'd ever run was 2.5 miles but we figured the extra adrenaline rush on race day would see us through to the finish.  I'd say it nearly killed us!  I finished in exactly 30 minutes and my mom finished in 33 minutes.  We were slow!  My older sister finished way ahead of both of us.  That's the last race my mom ever did.  She stuck to her regular routine of walking after that, but for Laura and me there was no going back.  We were hooked on running.
It was thrilling to run along with my sons, first Marcus in the 5K, and then Ethan in the 1-Mile fun run.  Next year I'm going to make sure Ethan trains so he can do the 5K because he's a force to be reckoned with as he fearlessly zipped around runners twice his size, passing people all along the way.  Plus, running is a great sport for short people which fits the bill for our short family!

Eating the free food while waiting for the race

Landon pigging out on donut holes

We did it!

Ethan climbed the rock wall waiting for his race.  He's like Spiderman on those things!