The Spring of the Running Girl

No, that's not the sequel to "Dances With Wolves."  Instead, it describes how Sarah has spent the spring being part of the cross-country program after school.  She has been working very hard all spring, twice a week for an hour after school, training for the New Balance Girls-On-The-Run 5K race, which was this past weekend.

Sarah did phenomenally.  She asked her fat lazy old man to be her Running Buddy, and she set the pace for how we would run.  In the downpour at George Mason University yesterday morning, she led us out onto the course and never once stopped.  We passed people who were walking, we passed people who were jogging, we kept right on going up three different hills (amazing how we never seemed to go *down* any hills) to the finish line, where Sarah kicked in the afterburners and sprinted across the finish line.

She wound up finishing 968th out of 2,643 total runners, all girls in elementary schools around Northern Virginia.  She finished a 5K race in 35:50, or an average pace of 11 minutes 32 seconds per mile...not shabby at all for her first time doing a road race!  She finished in the top 37% of all girls running that day, and quite honestly, was probably one of the first Silverbrook girls to finish; we know several others were eating her dust all morning.

We're so proud of Sarah!  Click on our Spring 2010 photo album to see sights from her Brownies activities this spring, as well as a couple of pictures from the race.

Sarah's Year in Brownies

Sarah is finishing her third and final year in Brownies; it doesn't seem quite possible that the little girl who joined Daisies four years ago this fall is on the verge of Bridging over to be a Junior Girl Scout.  Her Bridging ceremony will be on June 6, which looks like a perfect day because Grammie and Grampa Tarrier plan to be in town that weekend.

In the meantime, her troop leader has posted up a slideshow of snapshots taken throughout the year: the pumpkin patch and pig races, seeing the Nutcracker and going backstage, the Princess Diaries sleepover, and their Thinking Day exhibits on Christmas Island are all here.  Enjoy seeing our little girl growing and blossoming.

Rebirth

Updating our previous story: The spring rains and warm sunshine have finally led the Dad Tree to put forth its leaves.  Click here for a photo of it as of this afternoon.

The story from the last post made it into the sermon that I delivered at church on April 25 and again at Lincolnia Senior Center on May 2.  It's good to know both stories--the tree, and the promise of new life in Christ--have a happy ending.