Slap Me Some Happy! (HTC 2011)

We met earlier in the summer to figure out leg assignments. We set the kids up with a movie and started the serious work of picking out leg assignments.

Matt had us draw number for which van we'd be in and then again for the leg number of that van.

 Cliff and I got Van 1 (a cushier assignment for sure!)

See how happy Ashley is to be in Van 1?

Then we drew to find out which legs we would run from that Van. Cliff got the most difficult of the 12...

Then we figured out what each one meant and bartered and traded... 

Cliff pretty much knew that he wanted to drop out before the meeting, but no one believed him especially when he drew leg 5 :) He eventually found a brave soul (Aaron) to take over for him. Unfortunately, a few of us (Cliff, Riette, and Michelle) had to drop out for various reasons. But this is how we started out. Such a fun group of friends! (pic is missing Riette and Tony)

This year we kept the last half of our team name so they would actually read it from the podium... and really what in the world does Bruce's Giblet Wagon have to do with slappy hands?? The team assignments moved around a lot with us in Van 1... I ended up switching so Rhonda (the replacement for Riette) could be with her husband. So I ended up in Van 2 with a bunch of wackos... by wackos I mean Matt, Andrew, and Brett. We had so much fun from the van decorations...

to the time spent with good friends.

Sure the intense heat was a little distracting. But the little kids that positioned themselves along the route with water soakers really helped!

And the disoriented, dehydrated guy that Brett had to help to the side of the road may not have been having much fun.

We may have seen people being loaded into ambulances and people dropping like flies right and left...

And the fact that they added 250 extra vans to the race made the traffic HORRIBLE!!

But, the fellowship with fun friends made it worth it. :)

The guys: Aaron, Shawn, Matt, Brett, Andrew, Tony and Hermanus.

The girls: Anne-Marie, Ashley, Me, Michele, and Rhonda.

We had at least 80 Happy Slaps by other runners/volunteers!

And we got a few winks of sleep... before Hermanus (from Van 1) showed up and told us to get moving... NOW! At least this time he didn't scare us so bad in a huge line of cars (by slamming his hands against our window unexpectedly and loudly yelling) that it made all 6 of us scream like little girls. Man, I wish I had a picture of that!

Here we are waiting to load the bus that ferried us to the beach (the traffic and parking were horrific!)

And here's the team running in with anchor Matt: 

Here is a look at the festivities: 

AM, me and Ash

Finally, the whole team! Slap Me Some Happy!

And our traditional lunch at Camp 18 :) Yummy burgers, sore muscles, and tons of memories. I love Hood to Coast and all these awesome people! Thanks for another fun year.

 

*All pics were either from Anne-Marie's or Jenn's camera :) Thanks for sharing gals!