This past weekend was the
Discovery Walk Festival here in Vancouver. The Discovery Walk Festival is a yearly walking festival sponsored by International Walk Fest and the City of Vancouver, Washington to foster international friendship. There
were walkers and military units from a dozen different nations.
I (Anne) have enjoyed participating in this the past few years. Over the weekend the festival provides distances to walk between a 5K and a full marathon. This year, Alex and I ran a 5K on Friday, the kids and I walked the 6K family walk on Saturday, and then I jogged a half marathon on Sunday. The walks are very well put together and they take you through some historic parts of Vancouver. They also provide great entertainment for the kids along the way, including a balloon man and face painting.
Alex had a tarantula painted on his face, and Allison became the sugar plum fairy complete with purple lipstick. I was hoping to take some pictures. We had great weather on Saturday, and our walk ended by some fountains in
downtown Vancouver that are great fun to play in. Following the splashing in the fountains, the face painting really wasn't worth photographing anymore.
If you do the math, Alex logged in 7 miles this weekend. Next weekend we are headed to Eugene, OR for Adam to run the
Eugene Marathon. While there, Alex is participating in his first Kids Marathon. He needs to log 25.2 miles prior to next Sunday. Then he runs the final mile Sunday morning on the actual marathon course. Thanks to our events this weekend, he's up to 23.2 miles!
Have you heard of Ready, Freddy? We hadn't either until Granny (Anne's mom, who happens to be a first grade teacher) visited us three weeks ago. She introduced Alex to a series of books starring Freddy Thresher, a first grader who loves sharks, and is usually dealing with some type of first grade crisis. (In this book he is the only student in his class who has not lost a tooth). 
