Monkey See, Monkey Run

Our friend, Sam Dean, is very involved with a camp for children living with cancer. It's called Camp Smile-A-Mile, Camp SAM for short. (He's still hoping one day that someone will admit they named it after him!). Every February, we attend the Camp SAM Red Nose Ball to raise money for the camp and for cancer research. This year, we added to our events schedule by running in the Monkey See, Monkey Run 5K in Birmingham with several of our friends. Here is at least most of the crowd.

This is Matt and Sally Register, Sae and Leslie Evans, Sam and Alicia Dean, and JD and Laura Powell.
I was shocked when Barry agreed to make it a family event. He usually shies away from those kind of things. This time, he not only agreed to take Canon along with us, but also to push him in the stroller! He must want something . . .
This is, I think, the fourth picture ever taken of the three of us.

Barry, Canon, and I finished somewhere between 28 and 30 minutes. Sam's mom says it was about 28:30, but Barry thinks he saw some time after 29 when we crossed the finish line. Neither of us really cared, of course. I was just proud that we finished and, of course, that we helped raise money for kids with cancer. Sam would like me to include here that no matter what time we finished, it was still behind him!
After we finished, we hung out with friends . . .

. . . watched the other racers cross the finish line . . .

. . . and reloaded with some post-race carbs. This is Canon choking on the banana that I gave him. I promise that I didn't just let him choke while I found a camera and snapped the shot. I didn't even notice that I got one of him choking until I looked at them later. It makes for a pretty hilarious picture though.


When everyone finished, we went to Cracker Barrell and had the typical I'm-feeling-really-good-about-myself-for-helping-kids-and-burning-calories-so-I'm-going-to-stuff-my-face-with-extra-grease-and-carbohydrates-to-celebrate-how-great-I-am-today post-race meal. It was delicious . . . and totally deserved!