Walk the Walk

The kids look forward to "The Walk" every year. It's not only a lot of fun for our family, but it's a great opportunity for us to raise money for Sharing Down Syndrome (an organization that has made such a difference to our family and the community). We had a great group of people who donated this year, and were so grateful.

Saturday morning dawn hot (of course), and sunny (no surprise there). We got to the stadium at 8:00 am. The event goes until noon, but we've realized over the years that everyone's happier if we can finish up by 10:30, before we become red-faced, sweaty, and a tad cranky.

The pictures speak for themselves:

The beach umbrella was Chad's idea. Genius.

Corban's first time.

Lincoln was obsessed with this therapy dog. He kept hugging her. It. Was. Adorable.

We were joined by Adam's family and my cousin Jennifer's family.

It was a great day, and a great reason to walk.

Eight-Hour Date

Chad and I don't go on dates enough. Money is tight, and we're pretty lazy. We usually just watch a DVD from the library and call it a date. But it's not the same as getting out of the house on our own.

Since my mom was coming to visit, and volunteered to babysit, I decided we should go on an actual date. I didn't want to spend much money... in fact, I thought it sounded like a much better idea if we could actually earn money while on our date.

Hello, ride-along.

It was my second time going to work with Chad, but my first time since we moved. I wanted to see his new area, and spend some quality time with my favorite person.

We had a surprising amount of fun. It was clear that we had desperately needed some one-on-one time. I watched him hand out warnings and a few tickets. He's a very kind officer; he definitely does not pull the "bad cop" act unless someone is being a complete idiot.

I learned the ins and outs of the computer system, and tore off the citations as they printed out below my seat. I handed him the scanner when he came back with the subjects' signatures. And I was ready to push the special button to release the huge rifle between our seats, in case things got crazy.

Things didn't get crazy. But we did get to run code, and we ran through some traffic lights and stuff. It was cool. He handled a collision at the freeway exit where rear-ending is an almost daily occurrence during afternoon rush-hour. Chad was kind enough to put the front end of the woman's car in her back seat for her. What a gentleman.

Perhaps not the most romantic date, but I had a great time nonetheless.