Ben's Ragnar Relay

Last weekend, Ben ran in a Ragnar Relay from Madison to Chicago (with a group of 12 people from our ward). They collectively ran 200 miles, through farmland, towns, and cities, starting early Friday morning and ending Saturday afternoon (so they ran through the night). Ben ran on Friday early evening, then 2:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. It was ridiculously hot and humid that weekend and at one point it was in the mid-90s when they were running, which is miserable!!! But he says he had fun and there were lots of bonding in the group over their crazy conditions. 

In the meantime, I was home dealing with the boys by myself, which would have been no big deal, except that Charlie got a stomach bug on Friday afternoon/evening (throwing up in my bedroom and in the car - both not my favorite places for a child to vomit!!) and then I got really sick on Saturday and wanted to throw up, but it never happened. Just had extreme nausea and exhaustion. I was so relieved when Ben came home on Saturday night and could help put the kids to bed, because I could barely function. 

On Sunday, I stayed home from church and slept the entire three and a half hours that Ben and the boys were gone, because I still felt crummy and wiped out from the bug. By the afternoon, the boys were totally restless after a weekend of inactivity, and it was roasting hot outside, so we busted out the sprinkler to water the grass and let the kids run around and have fun.

Poor Charlie really wanted to go to the "secret park" (near our house that we don't go to very often but had recently) and kept saying, "Can we go, pretty pretty please?? MAY I go to the secret park, pretty pretty please?" :) Ben could barely walk after running a total of 17.1 miles over the weekend and I could barely walk from feeling nauseous and weak, so we were total disappointments to Charlie that day. :)

 The boys did lots of fun bubble activities too (can you tell Eli is totally obsessed with bubbles right now??).

Here's Ben trying to recover from not sleeping Friday night and being so physically wiped out. He recovered and managed to go to work the next morning!