Between school, soccer, and exploring our town there hasn't been much downtime. I knew once we got to Halloween the madness would taper off so I have been looking forward to the end of October. This Halloween was different for us. It was the first one in Weddington. Our girls are used to trick-or-treating in a neighborhood that you could fill your buckets just going down one street. Caroline gave me a hard time about wanting to go around our neighborhood this year. We live in an area where the houses are pretty spread out and the majority of the owners have older children or are retired with no children at home. She was worried that the less kids that were out the less candy people would be giving. I personally was excited about less candy and more walking for my girls this night. To be fair we probably only saw 3-4 other groups out, but our new neighbors were thrilled to see little princesses and a fairy at their door. They poured handfuls of candy in their pumpkin buckets and Brandon and I got to enjoy talking with the adults we knew. Everyone had a great evening and we almost made it around the mile loop before Bella hit her limit. With 4 houses to go she couldn't go another step without a drink of water. When I heard the words, "We can get water in a minute, let's go get some more candy" come out of my mouth I realized maybe I was a little more excited about their full size candy bars than they were.
Before too long I remembered that the next day was November 1st, the day every parent of young kids dreads. They day after you let your kids stay up late, walking around in the dark eating pounds of chocolate and sweets and try to shove them off to school at 6 AM. This year it also coincided with the day I needed to take the girls to Greensboro so they could stay with their grandparents while Brandon and some of our friends participated in the Tough Mudder. Caroline had a soccer tournament the same weekend in Charlotte so my mom offered to drive down to Charlotte, get a hotel room, and take Caroline to her double header games and drive her back to Greensboro until Sunday afternoon. The plan was to meet her to hand off Caroline and then drive to Greensboro myself to take the other 2 to Brandon's parents' house and back in time to meet Brandon for dinner in Uptown for a date. On the way here my mom noticed how bad the roads were with the pouring rain and offered to keep all 3 with her in the hotel for the night. She took them all swimming in the indoor pool, out for dinner and frozen yogurt and shared a room with 3 little ones. I've shared a hotel room with these people before, it's not something I would wish on anyone else, but she handled it. I heard there was a little bit of musically chairs being played in the sleeping arrangements that ultimately ended in my 62 year old mother sleeping on the floor, but she still got everyone up, packed, fed, and out the door in time to make it to Caroline's soccer tournament. Caroline's team finished 2nd place in the tournament and she was ready for me to sign her up for the spring season before the weekend was over.
The Tough Mudder was a fun time. Brandon signed up because our good friend from back in Cary offered to come down to race with him. Once we started reading about what was involved with the obstacles he wasn't sure what he was thinking. Jumping into a pool of icewater, crawling through a tube half full of mud and water, or being zapped by 10,000 volts of electricity climbing through mud over hay bales sound appealing to anyone else?! These are all just a few things he did in between running 12 miles. As the weekend approached I figured it would be like the Krispy Kreme challenge, he would hate doing it, and would probably hate that he did it once he crossed the finish line, but maybe by the end of the evening and onward it would be something fun to tell people he did.
To my surprise he had an absolute ball. The miles went by quickly and he seemed to love crawling through the mud. Even the Arctic Enema ice pool was a nice relief on his muscles. I wasn't able to see him on all the events (the spectator trail was an obstacle course in itself), but every time we did see him he had a huge smile on his face. The only downfall to the entire event was I lost his wedding ring. That morning he had taken it off so it wouldn't be lost or damaged and handed it to me. At 6:30 AM putting it my pocket seemed like the perfect idea. Hopefully someone picked it up since I put a claim in for it, but if not I guess I know what I'm getting him for Christmas!
The orange headband may have gone to his head a little bit because Brandon is ready for the next challenge. He has decided now is the time to finally run a full marathon. He has also somehow talked me into running a half marathon at the same event. The plan now is to race in the Raleigh Rock and Roll so we can support Sixtyfeet and see some of our friends and family in the process. Hopefully training through the winter won't be a bad idea.
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