24 hour paddle-a-thon

On Friday afternoon after some playtime on the playground after school, I packed up the boys and head on over to beach 1. That day was to be the start of the 1st (perhaps now annual?) 24-hr paddle-a-thon. It was to raise awareness for pediatric cancer, as well as to collect funds for two wonderful local families who have children battling this themselves. We had to sign waivers for participation and Beth and i figured we might be able to help out with some last-minute stuff. In reality she ended up scooping goose poop off the sand (fun, fun) while I watched the kids, but we weren't really able to do much with 4 kids in tow. We were there though for the beginning of the event at 5:00, including the national anthem and then the start of the paddle. Eventually a DJ came to get the party started and the girl scouts were there operating a little "kid zone" for the little ones.





Saturday morning my mom and I packed up the boys bright and early and head on over to the lake for our portion of the paddle. My team (Pinecones/JWA) had assembled (I believe) 24 members, so we each needed to only do an hour. I felt kinda wimpy just doing an hour when there were teams there of individual people that did 24-hours by themselves! But the fact of the matter is, we all paid the same entrance fee for regardless how long we paddled, and I'm assuming we all collected donations, so in the long run I guess I still did my part. Tyler was signed up with me. He was leery about even getting in the canoe, but he did it. Poor Jason screamed for me as I paddled away, but my mom said he calmed down fairly quickly. Tyler didn't too much paddling (in fact I think he "paddled" about 30 seconds) but he enjoyed himself and was good company. We even called Cara when we were paddling past their house and she came out to wave (my brother Jim was at work unfortunately). For the record, my iPhone was in a Ziploc bag and I took pictures through the bag, hence the not-so-good quality.





After our paddle we enjoyed some yummy breakfast donated by some local restaurants. Jason kept stealing my OJ and drank probably a whole cup!


Afterwards Tyler showed off his new skill to my mom. He had FINALLY learned the day prior how to put his head all the way under the water. Making progress, slowly but surely.

After a short while we came back home and I let Jason nap for a while. Around 2:15 Jason's whining was so incessant that we just decided to head back on over to the lake to cheer on the other paddlers and play with Beth and family. The kids had a great time. Around 5:00, when the paddle-a-thon ended, they had a luau with lots of free yummy food donated from Whole Foods and Zinc Cafe (amongst probably other places). They also did a raffle for door prizes. My friend Beth won $100 gift card to Murphy's (local grocery store) as well as 2 ferns!

All in all it seemed like a huge success and it was all for a great cause and to support 2 wonderful local families. Makes me so happy to be back in Medford Lakes in a wonderful town with wonderful people! Did I say "wonderful" yet?

I tallied it, and in total it appears that we put in 11-12 hours at the lake over the 2 day period! Nothing compared to those that organized it or paddled hours at time, but I was exhausted!

Sunday was rest day. Thunderstorm and tornado watches (none of which ended up happening). Worked on attempting to unpack some boxes. Still living in box hell over here. In the afternoon we had to go to the mall for Tyler's friend Scarlett's 6th birthday. Tyler is SOOOO excited with his "peace bear" that he made at build-a-bear. Jason settled for an Auntie Anne's pretzel (smart kid).