BUSY Mother's day

Sunday dawned bright and early at our house. We had daddy to work, and we were parked downtown by 7am getting ready for the walk. I had NO IDEA how big the event was, but they said there was a "good" turnout...HA...there were 40,000+ people there!
There were great sponsors there, and Maggie was handed Rita's mango ice at 7:10am...not a bad way to start the day in her mind! I know you are thinking "what kind of mom lets her kid have Italian Ice for breakfast" well this mom actually! I got her up at the butt crack of dawn and made her wade through crowds to walk a 5k on a Sunday...I think she deserved it! From there we went on to get a doughnut, yogurt, some milk, and I think she even grabbed us a nutri-grain cookie from somewhere.
I wedged my jogger through the crowds to get a coffee and then took Maggie to get her face painted at the kids zone. She saw a bunch of people running around with the pink capes, so off we went in search of them...It wasn't even 8am yet! We watched the survivor parade(3000 strong) and watched as they released a flock of doves up into the beautiful blue sky before we headed off to find our starting line. THOUSANDS of people were headed the same way, so it took a while to funnel everyone in the right direction! I'm not sure when the walk started, but we just kept going, and eventually we saw the start sign. UP, UP, UP we climbed through Schenley Park walking our 5K. Poor girl, good thing I let her start with that Rita's...all she wanted was to sit down. I did not prepare either of us for all uphill waking, but we made it. We stopped at the first "pit-stop" and were in line for the restrooms when we ran into some friends from St. Philip's. It made the rest of the walk easier for Maggie to have other kids to play with. This is one of my favorite pictures from the Race for the Cure. Maggie and her friend were running up the side of the hill next to where the walk was, with their pink capes flowing behind them!

The course wound it's way past this fountain, so we had to stop and take a picture...she looks annoyed because I had just taken another one with my I-phone and she wanted to go catch up to her friends...At the finish line! She walked the WHOLE way!

Fionn slept the whole way, but woke up to share in a little ice cream afterward!

After the race we decided to go spend a quiet afternoon at the zoo since Greg only worked until 3:30pm we would then be close and just go get him. Little did I know(or pay attention to) that the zoo was running a special for Mother's Day. Any mom accompanied to the zoo by her children got in free. What a great special, but the zoo was PACKED...I mean just as packed as the walk it seemed! It was also Child Safety Day and a bunch of local(and federal) Law Agencies were on hand for the kids to meet. This sheriff was GREAT with Maggie. She waited patiently to sit in his car (he was letting the kids talk on his loud speaker) and when it was her turn he got down on his knee and called her "his princess" She just giggled away and hammed it up. He introduced himself as "Knight ????"(Sorry nice officer, it was a LONG day) and then helped her into his car and let her talk on the Loud Speaker...He had her say "happy mother's day" and "I love you Mom" and she was THRILLED!

Let's leave it as the highlight of the trip...

All Maggie wanted to do after the walk in the morning was play on a playground, but since the roads were still closed into Schenley, we thought we could just play at the little play area at the zoo. Since there were so many people there and the lines were SO long we skipped most of the bigger attractions. We are there so much that the kids didn't even care. We played for a little bit at the play area, then packed up and headed off to go get Greg. We walked ALL THE WAY out to the line for the elevators when I looked down and noticed one of Fionn's shoes missing! Panic set in, if I went to look for it, we would surely be late going to get Greg, BUT it was our FAVORITE pair of his shoes. His Merrells that I ADORE. He has the chubbiest feet and it's so hard to find shoes for him that we like that I HAD to go looking for it. And that folks is where our day went to pieces...We searched for an hour, got stuck in traffic of everyone trying to LEAVE the zoo, and were an hour late getting Greg from work. We did NOT find the shoe, no idea where it went, but we were all exhausted by the time we got home. Maggie and I both plopped in chairs and didn't move. Greg made us dinner, and brought it to us where we sat. For those of you that don't know, our zoo is all up-hill as well, and it's a HIKE...so we literally walked ALL day on Sunday. My legs still hurt! I came upstairs to change my clothes after dinner, and made the mistake of sitting on my bed. I was OUT. So for those of you I didn't get to wish Happy Mother's Day to, please forgive me, but I couldn't move! I was so tired that somehow I lost a contact off my eye while I was sleeping, and I had JUST put a fresh new pair in that morning!
Before I go, I just have to give a little shout out to my sweet husband... I Love You!
I didn't even know that Mother's Day post was here until my aunt told me Monday morning! I am one lucky woman!!
Also I have to say THANK YOU to the Pittsburgh Zoo. They FOUND Fionn's shoe, and not only are they holding it for us, they put it back in the mail to us TODAY, Free of Charge! If you are not a member, I tell you, it's worth every PENNY!
I'll post more pictures of the race tomorrow, these were just my favorites!