1: I ran my first ever 5K!! Now this is a BIG DEAL for me, I've never been a "runner" but have always wanted to run a race. We were given a treadmill shortly after moving into this house (and my husband thought we'd never use it and I took that as a challenge to prove him wrong!) and I was out of excuses for not exercising. Every year our city has a 5K Rudolph Run the first weekend in December and so last fall I committed to training for it. I started slowly, only being able to run for 5 minute intervals and then walking for a minute and I gradually built myself up to being able to run a mile without stopping to walk at all!! I completed my 5K in just under 30 minutes, and came in 9th in my age group. I'm pretty proud of myself and am now pondering another 5K (or dare I do a 10K??) in April in Brenham, TX---they bribe you with Blue Bell ice cream before and after the race!!
Also, this Rudolph Run was really fun because there was also a 1 mile fun run for kids and I got Stephen to take all 4 kids (and an amazing helper from our ward,) the younger 2 in the jogging stroller, and do the fun run with the kids. They went first and Stephen was skeptical that our kids could run that far but they surprised him and did great and then waited for me to complete the race!
It was a gorgeous day for running!!
#2 reason of Craziness was the 8th Annual Nativity Display sponsored by our church for our community. I work heading up Public Affairs for our church in our city and so I helped to oversee this event. Over 500 Nativity statues were put on display with Christmas Trees, twinkling Christmas Lights, live music by community performing groups and other churches from our community. We had about 2600 people enter our church building to view the display and about 600 of them were not members of our church!! This effort takes hundreds of man hours in planning and setting up and executing, but it's worth it to be able to spread the message to our community that we ARE indeed Christians who celebrate Christmas to remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.
Our event got print media in local magazine and 2 articles in a local edition of the Dallas Morning News. This article even featured a photo of Kaitlyn (a total surprise!--she was thrilled!!!). Every year we learn things to help improve the event, what's most important is the spirit that is felt by those who participate and attend. We're already thinking of next year's event.
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