Color Run

Lots to talk about today, starting with the Color Run at the school.  Madison earned this with the other kids who raised a certain amount of money for the Fund Run this past Wednesday, which of course was a sponsored marathon for kids.  They raised money for the school by doing laps on the track.  But today, they just had to do one lap, and all the while there were parents along the way with containers of paint that they squirted on the kids.

Madison took a couple direct hits along the journey, and as you can see she had goggles on to protect her eyes.  It was a fun time, all the way up until the end, when the kids tossed a bit of paint in the air, scattering it to the wind, directly over their heads.  And, of course it was messy!

Later on, we engaged in what is now becoming a timeless tradition:  the sacred honoring of Talk Like a Pirate Day.  It was in fact the big day, September 19th.  And yes, we did talk like pirates, quite a bit.  Arrrr!

We didn't have time for a pirate movie tonight, but we did do something better.  We organized the crew once more, assembled costumes, and went on a journey for treasure!

Here is just a small part of our crew - I think we had well over twenty pirates on the journey with us.  We couldn't fit all in once vehicle, of course, so we got in a bunch of SUVs and formed an armada, a treasure fleet!  And our destination?

Krispy Kreme!  We had the most pirates we've ever had for this sort of endeavor, each one dressed up fully in pirate garb to get the most revered of treasures!

Doughnuts.  Here the kids are, checking out the process that makes the doughnuts.  But these are kids, and they are pirate kids.  So therefore, they aren't interested in any processes right now.  All they want is doughnuts!

Here's Madison with her treasure, her box of Krispy Kreme bounty.  And of course, you can see her here talking like a pirate:  "Arrrrrr!"  There were so many of us, we had no room inside to sit together.  So we found our way outside to the grass in front of the store.

It was a perfect evening for this sort of thing, as the sun was going down and the weather was just perfect.  And the doughnuts were good too.  Daddy and Madison only had one, actually.  To us, it wasn't all about going to devour a bunch of free doughnuts - it was about dressing a pirate and going on an adventure.  And judging by all the other pirates around us, it appears a lot of rogues were thinking the same thing.  We filmed a bit tonight, as Josh came along to video our crew:  again, there were at least twenty of us or more.  We'll make the footage work with something for our KidPak service next weekend, but until then, it was just fun hanging out together.  Dressed as pirates.

So what did Madison and Daddy do with the twenty-two doughnuts remaining?  We brought them by the church, where there was a woman's conference going on.  Earlier, we promised Officer Monica that we'd bring some of our booty back to share.  It was a nice surprise to see us pour in with doughnuts for all the workers and police officers there that night.  Madison was quite generous with her portion of the treasure!

And so, Talk Like a Pirate Day came to an end.  We did have a bit of story time tonight, but Daddy went old school by making up the story himself:  it was a story of all the pirates we know, on a journey of their own to get free doughnuts.  Madison, Angelica, Davy Jones, Metalbeard, Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbossa and more were on a journey to Krispy Kreme to get something of great price, something they had to sell all their possessions to have.  It was like a pearl of great price, and all had given everything in order to commission the expedition.  And so they arrive at Krispy Kreme, and discover that despite all they've given - the doughnuts were free!  And even better, all that which they've given up - was returned back to them by the manager of the store.  And even better, they are told to follow a dotted line that now crosses the floor of the store.  It appears like a dotted line you follow on a treasure map, so they follow it and find that towards the back of the Krispy Kreme is a door. It isn't any ordinary door, though.  It's a door to a pirate heaven, an island paradise filled with buried treasures, targets for shooting cannons, pirate forts, hooks and peg legs, and talking parrots and monkeys.  It is a pirate heaven, one they can visit at any time.  But especially on Talk Like a Pirate Day.