One of the highlights of the evening was watching the kids race back and forth across their backyard.  Their daughter Madi would race Athanasius.  Here’s a picture of them at the beginning of their epic battle.

I’m not even sure if we can call Athanasius’ actions “running” as that technically requires both feet to be off the ground.  Watching him is like watching those awkward speed-walkers in the Olympics (well, minus the speed).

But, the Scooter was not born yesterday, he is one smart cookie.  If Madi’s the hare, then Athanasius is the intelligent tortoise.  Even though Madi moved out ahead of him, as soon as he saw her touch the wall, he would immediately just turn around (rather than run all the way to the opposite wall like Madi).  You can imagine the great advantage this gave him to cut out such a huge part of the race.  Here he is on the return lap:

What?  Yes, little Madi still passed him up on the way back.

But, always remember this little tactic from Athanasius.  If your legs let you down, just use your imagination and your mouth.  As Athanasius pulled up to the wall fifteen seconds after Madi, he calmly walked over to her with his pointer fingers from each hand in the air and stated, “Madi…we bofe got first pwace.”

Yes, Athanasius you are first place to us :-)  Here is our family together with the Schoenbachs at the end of the night: