From a run with color to one with none and yet just as messy.  Job ran with his buddy, Henry. These two have done so much together, ever since they met at after school chess club at North Bell School. They've been in chess and wrestling together.  They have a fantasy football team that they manage together.  They ran in the Muds to Suds signing up with the Ferndale Force wrestling team.  These two boys rocked their heat by coming in 1st place together.  They overtook people who had started 30 minutes before them.  They booked it to the finish line and I hardly had to take photos. Lona on the other hand ran with her soccer team.  It was a decision that really tore her up. She wanted to run with her team and she wanted to run with one of her friends from church. In the end she ran with her soccer team since they all signed up together. They pretty much stuck together and would wait for each other through the obstacles.  My camera cards were full and I had my underwater camera and I can't tell how many times I turned the camera off instead of taking the photo.  I also had to watch for falling branches while taking photos it was so windy. Some of the vendor tents had blown over and the event was canceled entirely later in the afternoon due to the windstorm. In the end it was good dirty fun while it lasted.

 I like the fair due to the photos I can take. I don't like the fair because it seems too expensive for what I get out of it - a tummy ache from crap food and 10 pounds of weight gain.  I like the feeling of summer, the teens that can wander the fair without me, the displays. I don't like that it is a parade of scantily clad underage girls and the guys' eyes that wander over them and their catcalls. I like the visiting with people I don't normally see even though we live within 15 miles. I don't like the superficial talk when people see you and really don't want to talk but feel like they have to. I like the activities that the kids do such as chin-ups at the Armed Forces Booth. I don't like the barrage of pressure to play the games. I like seeing the animals and talking to the teens that raise them.  I don't like the feeling of needing a shower after 30 minutes of walking around. It's a tug of war between how much I like and dislike the fair and swear that I'm not going the next year but then the cheap discount day comes along and I buy the tickets anyway. This year was a little different in that I was with my friends Marie and Tara and the kids were totally off on their own, checking in only for food. Job and Johnny left early, Isaac came to pick them up. We went on the hottest day but that was the only day I really had. Marie and Dylan went home about dinner time and Tara and I stayed until after dark. Lona loved it. Isaac didn't even go.  He had no interest in it at all.  Marie, Tara and I went from shady spot to shady spot due to her operations on her feet and her being wheelchair bound.

I'm not sure when I first heard about the Color Run.  Whenever that was I had decided that I really wanted to participate in one.  I missed the one in Seattle and then somehow Bellingham was having one.  I had seen photos and it looked like a party.  So I mentioned it to Lona's soccer team, some gals at church and placed it on my calendar for the first day of sign ups.  It was almost 9 months out and I had no idea if I was going to be around but I wasn't missing it because I hadn't signed up in time.  I bought socks through the site and the whole thing was expensive for a 5K but I was hoping it was worth it.  It may not have been had I been running with another adult but running it with 2 teenage girls that are happy and chat and laugh was what made it a fun run.  Each color station was a place to twirl and dance h as we passed the color throwers. I would put my saftey glasses down as I heard the music blarring and saw clouds color dust in the air so I wouldn't get it in my eyes.  At the end there was a stage with music and a DJ. The crowd was pumped and they were jumping up and down.  We pushed through the crowd to get close to the front when I realized that the DJ was calling people up on stage.  I grabbed the girls and went to the side.  He brought them up on stage and had them throw color packets as the music pulsed through the speakers. When the word "JUMP" rang out everyone tore open their color packets and there was dust everywhere.  A little while later we made our way over to Rocket Donuts for a bite and to regroup with our team. Loved it.