July 4th Blast

We started our July 4th by waking up at 4:30 a.m. and heading down to Atlanta for the Peachtree Road Race. If anyone knows how much Nathan loves running fast, you know this type of atmosphere is right up his alley. It's the largest 10k race in the world with 55,000 participants. He definitely picked up on the excitment. Aunt Ruth and Lady volunteer through Aunt Ruth's company, Hewlett Packard, each year. I haven't been around to volunteer since 2004, but I decided this year I was not going to miss out. We filled water cups and handed them out to the runners.
Waiting for the race to start.
It's a family affair that Nathan was happy to be part of. In addition to us volunteering, Uncle Joe and Paw-Paw hung out down there (on babysitting duty).

Uncle Larry, Cousin Amanda and Tim ran in the race.
Uncle Larry grossing Aunt Ruth out as he gives her a sweaty hug.
Amanda and TimHere is the news man waiting to get a clip of someone grabbing water out of my hand.
Nathan probably ran his own 10k over the course of the morning.
He runs so fast. I know that because he tells me at least 25 times a day.
He even helped hand out water to runners towards the end of the race. He thought he was pretty hot stuff getting to do that. He even had a celebrity encounter. Clark Howard, the host of The Clark Howard Show, a national radio talk show saw Nathan and made a b-line straight for him and took the cup of water that he was offering. Paw-Paw didn't get a picture, but it was so cute. Each time Nathan handed someone a cup of water he would get a proud smile on his face and couldn't wait to grab another one and do it again.
At the end of the race, Nathan got to play with the extra water. That just added to the fun.
Look at Uncle Joe. You can just see he wants to take this water game to a whole new level.
As Nathan grabs another cup of water, Uncle Joe is leaning in to pour some water on Nathan. He just can't pass up an opportunity to pick on this poor kid.

Yep, there you have it. He's pouring water down Nathan's back. And Nathan thinks it's hilarious. Of course, no event in Atlanta is complete without the Chick-fil-a cow present. It works out nicely for Nathan. He loves that cow just as much as he loves their chicken.

Finally, a chance to relax.
This was on our way home. Uncle Joe can't just leave this poor kid alone for five minutes to let him fall asleep. He was so exhausted at this point, but he just keeps on smiling.

Here are a few more random pictures from Nathan's first Peachtree Road Race experience. We definitely owe Aunt Ruth a huge thanks for letting us be a part of the HP volunteers!

We can't wait for next year when Steve joins us for all this fun. He's going to take part in the running side of the fun. I already decided that for him.

We came home and took a much needed nap, then started right back up with the July 4th celebration. We had a great time at Paw-Paw and Lady's cookout with the rest of the family. After that, we went to the playground so that we could "swide." After it got dark we came home and Nathan and Paw-Paw sat outside and watched fireworks. I would have to say that Nathan had a pretty great holiday!

The next morning we went to church and saw Cousin Emma. This was the first time Nathan saw Emma on this trip. I tried getting a picture of the two of them together and this what I ended up with. They have very different personalities, in case you couldn't tell.