2012 Making Strides in Rockford

Oh boy was it a full house this weekend at my sister's place! T, the kids, Jordy and I made the trip down for Making Strides.

The trip down on Friday was long, but pretty good. It is nice NOT to have to stop for gas driving the fuel efficient Jetta TDI wagon! Friday night we ordered pizza, made introductions and played with the dogs before the kids all went to bed -- Syd and Sully shared a room, Cass and Harper shared a room. Jennie, T, Mom, Dad and I stayed up talking, having cocktails. Fun stuff.

Saturday we rounded up some of the troops (Jennie, Mom, myself, T, Harper, Cass, Sully) and were off to the Making Strides event. The kids brought scooters (and skut bike for Sully). We didn't make the entire walk, but were there to show support and walk some of the course. The kids then had some play time at the playground. And we took some family photos with the fall colors before heading back home.

everybody clean up

Sunday T and I did a Minnehaha Creek clean-up, sponsored by REI and Leinenkugel's.

We rode our bikes over to Hiawatha Lake. REI had free bike "inspections" - I had debris removed from a brake pad and the chain cleaned and lubed. Sweet! Then we grabbed garbage bags and headed out to several creek locations.

T and I decided to wade in the creek and pick trash right out of it. We had two bags nearly full by the time the 90 minute clean up was complete. Several creek path users shouted out "Thanks" for our effort to keep the creek clean. I found part of a hockey stick, LOTS of beer cans, some plastic bottles, t-shirts, shoes, etc. It is amazing what ends up in our waters.

After the clean up, we had a BBQ with a couple Leinie's brews.

The mission was to collect 2 tons and we met it, had some fun and did some good.