bubbles make everything more fun...sorta

i somehow managed to talk the entire family into signing up for the bubble run with me this year.  the bean is most definitely not a fan of 5Ks, but she let herself get roped in along with the rest of 'em, and  you can see how thrilled she was when the time finally came to head out to the fairplex.

she tried really hard to keep the grumpy face, but when her daddy put the phone right in her face - well, she cracked a little.

and then he figured he'd give it a shot and see if he could get her revved up for the run.

i remembered how crazy it was last year, and it was no less so this time around.  this was the line to register for the race:

they'd just released the first few waves of runners, so the start line was fairly open.

we managed a group selfie before we got started.

he loves me.

as we got closer to the start line, we saw the giant bubble machines that were putting out tons and tons of foam.

it started off fairly flat, with a quick jog through the parking lot.  and then we turned a corner and hit a pretty gnarly hill.

of course, what goes up must come down, and we found ourselves on flat land once again.

the bean really wanted to slide down this thing.  i reminded her that the OC fair 5K lets you slide down their super slide during their run, but i don't know if that convinced her to do it again this year.

finally, we came to the first bubble station.  and it was my favorite color!

going through the wall of pink bubbles finally cheered her up a bit.

then her daddy tried to get her to run a little more.  after all, the more running we could get her to do, the faster we'd get to the finish.

they have this whole miniature railroad thing at the fairplex.  i'd never seen it before.

time for some green bubbles!

 and right on the heels of that, we reached the water stop.

can you feel the happiness?

a quick high five before the blue bubble station.

and then we found ourselves somewhere in the back of the complex, where we came across some old amusement park paraphernalia.

time for more bubbles.

she was definitely pooping out and SO over it.

right about here, the hub challenged her to beat him to the finish.  "you run and i'll power walk, and if you get to the finish first you'll get an extra treat today."

"challenge NOT accepted, daddy."

but then her sister decided to get in on the action and spurred her on to sprint the last few feet to cross that finish line.

i felt bad when we finally got to the nesquik tent and found that the line was way too long to stand in for a free cup of chocolate milk.

but at least i got the girls to do a jumpy picture with me.  we all got off the ground, i swear.

the hub refused to jump with me, but at least i got a kiss out of it.

so what if it was only 10:00 in the morning?  it's never too early for a hot dog from pink's.

apparently, that also applies to macho nachos.

after we'd sufficiently stuffed our faces with our food truck grub, we got the hell outta there.  we passed the bubble cannons, which were connected to these huge pools of colored soapy solution.

my poor socks.  but as i knew from previous experience, all of the color would wash right out.

i'm pretty sure we're done with color and bubble-type runs from here on out.  i mean, once you've done it once or twice, the novelty kind of wears off.  i'm always a hot mess after any sort of run anyway, so it's not like i need to add any more goo on top of that.  not to mention, these 5Ks almost never measure out to the 3.1 miles they're supposed to be.  this one only came to about 2.85.  oh well.

at least it was a morning of good, wholesome family fun.  right?