A Day with Eve

I have been getting some serious quality time with Eve lately. With Lex away at camp last week and next week, Eve and I have been enjoying outings and quiet home time together. Today she had a track meet an hour away and the weather forecast was 60% chance of thunderstorms. The boys opted out. Fair weather fans!! Just kidding, it was really a group decision that made the most sense. So Eve and I packed up and hit the road on our own.

It turned out to be a very small meet with just two town rec teams competing. They were pretty flexible on the rules, everyone had fun, and we were done by noon. It only poured once, for just a few minutes. Not too hot. Not too cold. Great day overall.

Eve signed up for the Standing Long Jump, which is different than the Running Long Jump she did at the last meet. I don’t know who makes the rules, but the running jump wasn’t an option this time. She also signed up for the 100m and 200m dashes. She wanted to do 200m and 400m, but for some reason the 400m wasn’t available for her age group.

Standing Long Jump

The Standing Long Jump is not her cup of tea. Really she’s only done it twice and has very little idea of the proper form. She also had very little interest in learning and chatted her way through the whole thing.

Later in the day we were watching some of her friends to the Softball Throw (younger version of shotput, I think) and the lady asked Eve if she wanted a turn. Eve said sure, why not. Like I said, they were pretty laid back at this meet. :)

Softball Throw. Underhand? Overhand? It doesn’t matter!

Eve ran the 100m and came in a very close 2nd. The winner’s mom showed me a picture and they were both over the line at the same time, the other girl just a hair ahead. It was a pretty cool picture. :)

Later she ran the 200m and did awesome! I think her time was 40s. The coach will send me “official” times later. The race had three girls and one boy. The boy was way ahead of everyone, but Eve was first in the girls. She considered it a win.

Rocking the 200m!

I love this picture. Eve and I were walking back from the softball throw and the older girls were running the 800m sprint. Eve saw our top runner heading for the finish line and said, “Oh, I’m going to run in with her!” I love the enthusiasm and the show of support. I have no idea if the other girl even noticed, I didn’t get a chance to chat with her, but it made Eve happy at least. This girl will be running in the Junior Olympics next month!

Eve decided to “run it in” with her favorite runner. This girl is Olympic material and super nice.

Her times:
* 100m – 0:18.09
* 200m – 0:40.56 (about 1.5s faster than last time)

After the meet was over a bunch of the team went to Ben & Jerry’s for ice cream. It was less than a half mile away so Eve and I decided to walk. After getting ice cream we decided to go to Dunkin Donuts (seriously) to get me some ice tea for the drive home. Eve wanted to walk there but I wasn’t sure how far it was and the sky was looking threatening, so we walked back to the car and drove. The whole time I was there I kept thinking we should have walked. It wasn’t that far and it didn’t rain. Had we actually walked Murphy may have kicked in though, you never know!

The whole drive home I was thinking that I really should get some proper exercise today, so I decided to invite Lex for a walk. I haven’t had much QT with him lately. He politely said no thanks to taking an walk, and Eve excitedly asked to come with me, so Eve and I headed out for some more time together. Alan joked (kind of) that maybe mom needed a walk to get a break from Eve, but I couldn’t say no to her request to come. She’s so darn sweet and has been super encouraging of me to exercise lately. She wants me to run a 5K with her this fall. Eek.

So off we went. We ended up walking for two and a half hours, a bit longer than we were driving today! The sun came and went, the rain held off, and we had fun. We took a midway stop at the river to sit down and soak our feet. Well, Eve soaked hers, I wasn’t interested in taking off my shoes and socks.