Marshmallows

I don't know how teachers, daycare providers, and stay-at-home moms do it without suffering from severe exhaustion. I spent the day launching marshmallows with kids at work today and I am BEAT. It was take your kid to work day and each year, I love helping out with the events. Since we moved to CO, I've done the marshmallow guns each year and it's always a "blast." But boy, I'm sunburned, my voice is depleting, and I feel like I could nap for an entire day! I've really got a lot of respect for those that spend each and every day working with kids. It was definitely a nice change of pace from the typical 10 hrs spent staring at a computer screen in a cube. We managed to break 2 of the 6 guns and we lost many of our volunteers in the first couple hours, so the lines were often very long (think 30+ minutes!). I had one kid that really cracked me up. (Background: there are 3 targets at 90, 120, and 180 ft and there are two variables to this problem-- pressure and angle of attack. By changing each of these, they can try to achieve their desired target. We've got plots that allow them to pick the most optimal angle and pressure for the given target as well). When he sat down, I asked him if he had selected a target that he'd like to shoot for. He replied "no." To this I said "you have three choices (pointed to them), which one catches your eye?". I get a very non-enthusiastic "I don't want to shoot a marshmallow." Almost left speechless (hard to do!), all I could think to reply with was "you sure waited in a long line to not get a chance at launching a marshmallow." He said "but I don't want to launch a marshmallow." I couldn't help but think how silly it seemed to stand in line for 30 minutes, but I quickly realized it was probably just teenage stubbornness. Luckily, I was quick to place myself in his shoes and made it more of a competition. Suddenly, it wasn't about rebelling against his father who had forced him to do this and more about beating his father in distance! So he may not have aimed for a particular target, but I think I managed to teach him a little bit about how to make it go further! (He ended up beating his dad.... but I may have rigged his father's pressure setting!) See, it wasn't only a physically exhausting day, but it also took a toll on me mentally!
As I was leaving work today, I remembered that Dave was running Waterton as part of a running club he has joined. I looked at my watch and realized that I could pull off a nice little surprise by showing up at the finish line. I hiked out to the end of the trail and got there just in time to watch him complete his 4-mile run (at a 6.5 min pace!). I think he was very shocked to see me there! I just love to play cheerleader!