color me bad

so, the color run.  because it's become such a popular "race," it's really more of a walk with the bazillion folks who register for it.  and for the bean, it became her first official 5K.

as i sat in the back seat of the minivan lilcee had borrowed from her folks, i noticed something on my bib - guess they're still using up a bunch of supplies from last year.

whatever.  we were still excited to have some fun.

pre-color.

by the time we arrived, most of the 10,000 people were already standing at the start line and waiting for the run to start.

lilcee and i seized this opportunity to go over and have our picture taken with the color run mascot, a unicorn.  who, i'm guessing in his confusion and limited visibility through that costume head, got all discombobulated as we posed together and inadvertently palmed my ass quite thoroughly.  i couldn't get away from it fast enough.

lots of folks in the crowd were already doused with color from head to toe.  pre-gaming, i suppose you could call it.

we were the very last wave to be released onto the course, and the announcer hopped up to toss out some final prizes via the air gun.

alas, we won nothing but the opportunity to finally start our 3-mile journey.  this is the first time i've been to this place in years.

after waiting around for so long, the bean was already complaining that she was tired.  i reminded her of how much walking she does at disneyland as we plodded along behind the rest of our crew.  and then the first color station proved to be a welcome distraction.

at the next one, she decided to lay down and make an orange snow angel.

her BFF mini cee was also not too big on this walking thing.  she spent most of the walk either riding on her daddy's shoulders or piggybacking with lilcee.  this was pretty much the only time she and the bean walked together.

yellow!

most people did not heed this sign.

my favorite color was the last station.  the bean decided to repeat her snow angel routine here.

with just yards to go, she finally pooped out and her sister gave in and carried her like a sack o'potatoes towards the finish line.

best group pics EVER.

yay, we finished!  and i was super proud of the bean for hanging in there for pretty much three full miles of walking.

i think she was pretty pleased with herself, too.

i knew quite a few folks who were coming to this thing, but we didn't actually see anyone until cousin seven came running up to us to say hello.

we were all pretty much over it and didn't bother to take part in the finish line color-bombing festival.  looked cool from afar, though.

as we headed back towards the parking lot, we decided to stop off with the dude wielding the gardening blower to get rid of some of the excess colored powder.

the start line was completely empty, ready for the next wave at 2:00 that afternoon.

like my blue 'stache?

too bad the bean ended up getting sick the next day.  she complained of a sore throat, and ran a low-grade fever.  i don't know if it had anything to do with the 5K at all, or if it was pure coincidence.  and luckily, it only lasted for a day.

i wonder how long it'll take her to agree to doing another one.  hmmm.