The Bismarck Half and Celebrating Fall

 Sam wanted to run the Bismarck Half Marathon again this year. I wasn't able to watch him run last year because I was in Wisconsin visiting the Sheranians. We left Williston at 3:45pm to head to Bismarck. We stopped for dinner in Minot and then drove the rest of the way. After we picked up Sam's packet, we went to our hotel and got the boys cozy in bed.

The next day was the race. It was 40 degrees when the race started. We dropped off Sam at the starting line and went to park. Then we walked to watch the start, then turned around and went back to our car.

The boys watched a movie on my phone and I moved the car closer to the finish line so I could sit in the car and watch people finish.

When it got closer to the time we were expecting Sam, we went to the finish line. The winner of the half marathon finished in one hour and 11 minutes. The second man was a few seconds later. The winning woman crossed in 1:28 and then collapsed.

It was finally time for Sam! A girl was running slightly ahead of him and her dad walked out to give her a hug and totally blocked my picture of Sam. It was lame!

We went to our hotel so Sam could shower and then we went back to the race for the awards ceremony.

Sam got third place in his age group, 14th overall. He finished exactly 20 seconds slower than he did the year before.

Sam let Alex wear his jacket from last year since he won a new one!

After the awards ceremony, we went and got lunch.

Then we went to the AppleFest. It was fun but I hate places where you pay to get in and then they charge for every little thing inside. We did the few free things and wandered around until it was time to go.

I was so proud of Alex. He wanted to go in the fire truck but was being shy. He finally decided to go ask the fireman if he could get inside the truck!

We waited in line for an hour so the boys could get their faces painted. They both wanted alligators.

We got some yummy fresh apple cider.

Although we were originally going to Bismarck for the half marathon, it was also our stake conference that weekend and our stake center is in Bismarck. Sam and I were both supposed to go to the leadership training meeting but that was impossible with the kids so Sam went to the meeting and I sat in the car with sleeping boys while I waited to meet up with Maggie. Guy also had to go to the meeting so Maggie and I took the kids to the park to play.

Once the meeting was over, we all went to Papa's Pumpkin Patch together.

These kids all get along so well.

The corn pit was so big and deep! We couldn't reach the bottom and there were tons of kids in there!

We went to dinner and then drove home. We didn't get home until after midnight. Bismarck seems so far away. It was a fun trip though and I am just glad there wasn't snow on the ground yet!