Still Standing...

We are all still standing. We all made it to the finish line. It was incredible. I am not even sure where to begin. The first thing I have to say is how incredibly blessed we are to have such amazing friends. Truly amazing. I cannot say enough about the unbelievable job they pulled off. Almost everyone got there by Friday night. H&C opened up their front yard to "tent city", others came and stayed in their house with us, in motor homes, campgrounds, rented houses, and some drove all the way up just for the day. We all met up at the spaghetti dinner the night before. We ate, and visited and adjourned to the house for more visiting before bed. We got up at 6am and K & C had an assembly line bagel toasting operation going on. Everyone grabbed breakfast on the go and we were dressed and on the road at 7am. We got to Lake Siskiou and set up "Camp Eric". After fielding a few people who seemed so impressed by our presentation that they mistook us for the registration table, we shirted up and got ready for the show. Swimming is first, and all of our swimmers did us proud. MA was the first from our team out of the water, and she was followed by our impressive numbers. The 10 mile bike ride was next, and our own JB was the youngest triathlon participant and 9 years old he rode the 10 miles. I had already left by this time with A & M for our walk, pushing the girls in the jog stroller. It was brisk but it felt good. It felt even better every time we saw a gray shirt passing by, and there were alot of them. HB did an impressive 1hr 30 min solo. We were just so proud to see everyone out there. The kids were all amazing, they just put their whole hearts out there and did us all proud. After the race, they held awards. The rotary was very supportive of us and our endeavor. They presented everyone on our team with a medal, and gave us a beautiful wood plaque dedicated to him and all of us. It was a wonderful experience. Another wonderful example of celebration for our daughters to witness. More people their father has touched. Some who have never even met him, but still joined with us to celebrate. We competed and celebrated with our old friends, and made some wonderful new ones (T,S & B, the H family). It was incredible and I was touched by not only the commitment of the people that we brought with us, but also by the generosity of those that came out of their way to join us, to compete with us and cheer us on. We all made it to the finish line, on our own accord. No one had to scrape me up off the side of the road, and (please don't tell K, or she'll make me do it again) it was invigorating, inspiring and cleansing. More on the rest of the day tomorrow, but it is the end of the day for me, and time to rest. We did him proud. This I know.