Since I’m so far behind on blogging, I’ve decided to just post photos from the recent trip.

Philadelphia had many first class attractions.  I only wish we had arranged to stay longer and see more of them.

They put us in the river at Water Works Park and we paddled/drifted for about 4 miles to the Riverwalk.  The kids loved it.  It was amazing how we were right in the middle of town, but it seemed like we were out in the middle of nowhere.  Even when we passed by the trails, you couldn’t see anyone because we were so low in the river.

I highly recommend taking a trip sometime soon!

And yes, those are Silly Bandz that my kids are sporting in the first photo.

In case you can’t figure it out, Tristan was a cow in the Kindergarten Farm.  Now that you know that, you can crave Chick-fil-A too!

Here is a video of the short performance:

Tristan did get an award for Accelerated Reader.  But then again, about 90% of the kindergarten class got the award so perhaps they should rename it “Average Reader”.

The kids participated in the one mile fun-run.  No, I’m not forcing my kids into my sport.  They WANT to do this.  I am happy that they are picking up on positive habits.  We know several kids who sit and play video games all day.

Tristan placed 3rd among boys 10 and under.  He ran the mile in just over 10 minutes.  That’s a lot faster than I was two years ago!

Mackenzie finished 4th among girls 10 and under.  She beat out girls three times her age!  She finished in about 14 minutes.

Here’s a picture with them sporting their finisher’s medals.  I regret that I didn’t get the pictures of them receiving their trophies at the awards ceremonies.  I wish I had brought my video camera so that you can hear the “AWWWWW”s when Mackenzie ran up to the stage to get her trophy.

After the fun run, it was time for my 5K.  I ran the race in 23:48 — a new personal record!  I was pleased.  Since I’m in a tough age group (30-34), I ended up 5th and didn’t get any bling bling.

Next, it was off to t-ball, which no longer has a “tee” as you can see above.  I’m still not sure what’s up with that.  I think maybe the ballpark lost all of the tees.

Here is Tristan getting tagged out on the way to first base.  It turned out to be a pretty good shot.

After lunch and a nice nap, we headed off to Downtown Macon for the Moonlight Miles 5K.  I’ve never raced twice in one day, but it worked out pretty well.  It was my first local night race and the only one I’ve done other than the Tower of Terror 13K at Disney.

Kimberlie isn’t great at getting good night shots, so you won’t see any pictures of me running at night.  My time was about 2 minutes slower because of hills and trying to avoid the Macon potholes at night.

We finally got home about 11:30 after a nice meal at the Waffle House (the only thing open).  Needless to say, we slept in this morning!

I signed him out of school at 9:50 and took him home.  First, I took pictures (of course).  Then I was able to eventually remove the eraser with a pair of tweezers.  I took him back to school and checked him back in at 9:57.  He missed seven minutes of school.

Needless to say, I’m not too happy about it.

Businesses are jumping on the bandwagon as well.  Hotels don’t want to wash your towels and sheets every night, but again, that’s probably more for financial reasons than for environmental reasons.  Other business decisions, such as recycling are practical and noble. There is, however, one place where businesses should not “go green”: the restroom.

My biggest pet-peeve about the whole thing is when paper towels are eliminated in favor of the air dryers in restrooms. The paper towels that most public restrooms have are the brown ones anyway, made from previously-recycled materials.  So by providing them, you aren’t completely anti-Earth.

First of all, they are loud and they scare the crap out of small kids.  Trust me, I know.  If the kids were to dry their hands before using the restroom, it would make them wet their pants.  It’s a good thing they wash their hands afterward.

Yesterday, we visited Stone Mountain and Tristan had an accident.  I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that the accident was so bad that I lost my lunch during the clean-up process.  That is not an exaggeration.  Some messes can not be cleaned up with cheap toilet paper.  When we left, that restroom stall was thoroughly violated.  I honestly would have cleaned up the mess had paper towels been around.  Unfortunately, some minimum-wage employee had to do it.

I was once, in my grocery store days, the guy who had to clean up comparable messes.  I always wondered how someone could “violate” a restroom like that.  Now I know.  In this case, it’s because someone tried to go green.

If you noticed in the pictures, Tristan is the star student for his class again!

That’s enough about Tristan for this week.  I promise that the next blog post will not be about him!