oooh-OOOOH!!!

Lex wanted to do the Resolution Run here in I.F. - a 5K. Dad and I were very unenthusiastic, but we signed up for the sake of togetherness. It was on New Year's Eve, and what we had to do was estimate how much time it would take us to run the 5K. Then we would start that many minutes before midnight. The idea was for everyone to cross the finish line at midnight. We estimated 45 minutes, so we started our run at 11:15. Ben has this thing where he has to kiss me at midnight on New Year's Eve - he's very sentimental about it. So my mom stayed at our house with our sleeping kids while Ben came along to be our photographer (and get his midnight kiss).



So here we are, pre-race, doing Deep Lunges:

The whole Deep Lunges thing originated with this photograph:

This was a few years ago. We were getting ready to ski, and Lex and I were laughing about how gross we looked in long johns. So to make ourselves look even grosser, we kept doing Deep Lunges. This year, we lent our long johns to my cousin's kids to go skiing during Christmas break, and Lex and I advised them to do lots and lots of deep lunges. My cousin's kids didn't get it, obviously. So we explained the history of Deep Lunges, and they didn't even crack a smile. Maybe it's just funny to us.

Anyways, we were both wearing long johns the night of the run (actually, I think Lex was wearing her new under armour, lucky girl), so we had to do the Deep Lunges together.

And here are me, Lex, and Dad pre-race:

Here we are, halfway done. The race was one big loop, run twice:

As for the race itself, it was cold, windy, and icy. We were running on ice half the time. I finally got fed up with it and ran in the street, where there wasn't ice. And there were hardly any cars out, really. There was this one part where the wind would just blast us for about half a mile, and it felt like we were going to die. During that part, Lexi and I would yell at Idaho: "Bring it ON, Idaho wind!!! Bring it!!!" It helped us to get through it.

And here we are, crossing the finish line. We actually finished five minutes before midnight:

Lex and I are doing the ooooh-OOOOOH arms in that shot. Here's another shot, post-race, of the ooooh-OOOOOH arms:

Story behind that: Lexi judges cheer competitions, and this one group would do this thing when they were transitioning in their little program from one part to another. They would put their hands on their shoulders and then up into like a high fifth position, yelling, "oooooh-OOOOOH!" She thought it was so gay. So now Lexi and I do that a lot.

Here are Ben and I, sharing the ever-important midnight kiss:

And then Ben did that thing on Lex where you cover the person's mouth with your hand and then kiss your hand:

I love her eyes in that picture. On the drive home, we were discussing our New Year's Resolutions, and Dad said, "My resolution is to not do any more 5K's." It was funny. I don't think Lex will let him off the hook that easily.