Saturday, June 5, 2010

Run Run

156/365

What a Super Day! Now that it's over, I feel like we've both Escaped, and Accomplished something. I could go home happy after only this one long good day away. And to think, we've still got another week to go.
Happy Day!
We started off the morning with Eric running the Sunburst Marathon. 26.2 miles of Crazy, and it was hot, and humid. And rather gross, but Eric did a great job. The coolest part, in my opinion, was that the runners ended by coming the through the Notre Dame Football Stadium Tunnel, out on to the field, where they crossed the finish line. We were hard to miss wearing matching bright green t-shirts, and Eric had no trouble hearing us in the stadium screaming WOOHOO!!!!



But we only had moments; the announcers had been warning us of a rather nasty approaching storm system. We had 5 minutes from when Eric crossed the line, to get to the car before the rains hit. Of course, I did stop to snap a few pics, but not many as we didn't want to get trapped. It started dripping as were offloading the kids, and as soon as we got in the car, we just Sat there as it Poured Down. I feel bad for those other runners, probably felt good, after the gross heat and humidity, but icky slick to run on.



So, we headed back to the hotel, for lunch and naps, which were very necessary. Then the boys caught a quick refreshing swim before we met up with our friend Kelly who we hadn't seen in a decade or so. (God Bless Facebook for hooking us up!) We went across the street to the South Bend Chocolate Cafe. Wanted to do something good South Bend. Holy Great Jehosephat! If they had beds, I'd never left. There was a Playground that rivaled Chick Fil-A, homemade chocolate goodies, a coffee counter, and a candy shoppe. Oh my word. I had to go back to stop up later. But at the time, we were content to let Chris play, and just get drinks. I got The Best Iced Mocha. Better than Starbucks in my opinion because whereas S specializes in Coffee, and adds chocolate, SBCC specializes in Chocolate and adds coffee. You can guess my preference, but it's a touch choice.

She suggested Gino's East for dinner (amongst other things) and when Eric heard truly Chicago style deep dish, we were sold. The Biggest Boy NEEDED his calories, after all. So Kelly took us on a driving tour through Notre Dame's campus, WHICH I must say is GORGEOUS. Even though I just keep wanting to chant, RUDY RUDY! During the race, one of my favorite parts was hearing Bagpipes play my high school fight song (OK it also happens to be the Notre Dame fight song too!), but with the weather and the traffic diversions for the runners, there wasn't much time for sightseeing. But BOY this is a pretty campus. It's not Butler, but it's Not Too Shabby.



So I snapped a couple shots as we drove around of the Notre Dame Dome.



Chris wanted to join me when I hopped out of the car to see the Touchdown Jesus on the Library. It was set up for some fancy wingding, but to give an idea of how Big this mural is...the little green dot down front, yeah, that's Chris.

Then we went to Gino's East Chicago Pizza. We got a wicked beastly Deep Dish Pizza. Normally deep dish doesn't agree with me, but theirs did. I'm doing just fine, pleased to report. :)




And it was so great to meet with our friends. This is what our trip is all about: Good Food, Good Friends, Good Family, Good Times!

2 comments:

SuperSillyAunt said...

Notre Dame is beautiful! I'm so glad I got to live there for a summer :) I'm happy that the four of you are getting the quality family time that you deserve!

Carla S said...

First off, Congrats to Eric for completing another marathon! WOW!

Second, glad the rain held off until just the "right moment" and that you didn't get too wet.

Third, the Notre Dame Fight Song was my high school's fight song, too!