Boston Marathon Race day... aka, Patriots Day!

It's Patriots day!!  We dropped Alan off at the Hopkinton State park at 7:30 this morning.  It was already in the 60s when we dropped him off.  Then the kids and I went over to the town of Wellesley to watch the race. 

Since it was sunny the kids hid under our blanket to shield them from the sun - so they could continue playing their games until the runners came past.

The elite runners came through 1 hr and 5 mins.  By the time the rest of the runners came in it was at least 80 degrees and lots of people were walking. We saw Alan and he was really sweaty, but still running at that time.

 

After seeing him we drove over to a parking garage for the T and rode into Boston to see Alan at the finish line.  We actually did see him at mile 26 and he was looking good.  We met him at the family meeting area.  He finished in 3:35.  That was 20 minutes slower than what he trained for, but it was really great considering the heat.

After the race we went over to the Boston Museum of Science.  Alan was a bit sore!!  After that we went over to the Sweetwater Cafe to meet up with the other runners.  Unfortunately we got lost and ended up at the other end of town.  We decided just to go back and look for it again, and this time we found it.

We had a great dinner of burgers next door and then Alan got to hang out with his new runner friends.

Boston - Sunday

Sunday was our day to visit the Boston Marathon Expo and pick up Alan's race bag.  It was a beautiful day to be out and about in the big city!

Here is Alan getting his bib.  It was exciting for me also because I got to pick up my friend's bib, and everyone thought *I* was running since I also had a bag.   That made me feel pretty important!  The worker even said "Good luck!" when I got the bag :)

 

 We all posed in the car that would be starting the race.  Pretty nice car!

 The kids and I tried out every PowerBar and sports drink in sight.  The kids had so many samples in them they could possibly run a marathon themselves with all of that caffeine.

One of the booths had a "wheel of fortune" and Sydney won a box of rice!!  It was so cute, the kids really thought we were going to have it for dinner at the hotel :)  The rest of us won chip clips.

After the expo, we headed over to the Natick mall.  The destination was the American Girl shop.  Sydney has been saving her money, and now she was glad she had - she bought two things which was $60!  She was so excited about her purchase.  And I was proud she saved her money for something she really wanted.

Now Zachary on the other hand, the spender in the house... he is broke and couldn't buy anything at the Lego store.  Too bad he just spent his Easter money on Beyblades!

After another long day of wandering all over, we had a yummy italian dinner at the restaurant right down the road from our hotel.

Oh, and bad news - Zachary's stuff animal (baby penguin) was missing after the room service came through.  We are guessing he got wrapped up in the sheets of the bed, but the hotel never did find him in their laundry.  Looks like we'll be replacing him next time we go to the Zoo!