Warthog Waddle and lots of baggies

Last Saturday Bailey and I ran in the Wiphan Warthog Waddle 5k to benefit widows and orphans in Zambia, Africa. I had been looking forward to this race for months and even though it was cold and pouring down rain the entire time we had fun!

Before the race

Bailey killed it! She got 2nd in her age division and finished in 28 something.:) :)

I didn't place in my division (I came in 4th) but I did beat my time from the last 5k (back in the summer) by 2 minutes and I could not believe it. I was in pain the whole race because my right hip started hurting really badly about 4 minutes in and it never stopped. I don't know why it was freaking out, but I was miserable and felt like I walked a lot, but I guess I didn't as much as I thought. Either that or I just ran really fast the rest of the time because I was sick of getting pelted in the face with freezing rain! :P

It was so exciting to see everyone who showed up to run even though the weather was awful! There were 500 runners registered and I'd say almost all of them showed up. :) Widows and orphans in Zambia are totally worth it!!

The most exciting part of the day was getting to hang with this girl. :) Andrea works with Wiphan and we follow each other's blogs and she is who did the whole "It's a Girl Thing!" pad party stuff in the fall. Basically we've been chatting on email and facebook and I was super excited to get to meet in real life and hug her neck. :) Her son Frank got sponsors and ran in the 1 mile Fun Run and he ran the WHOLE TIME! All of the Fun Run runners got a medal and he kept showing me his and saying, "I win da race." Too.dadgum.cute!

The rest of the weekend was spent stuffing baggies with craft stuff for Uganda. I had lots of help at our Crafting for a Cause weekend the week before (thank you!!) but we didn't get it all finished so Justin and I stayed up late, watched lots of episodes of Bones, and finally got it all done. 1,770 bags.

Can you find me??

Times the amount that you see here by about 5 and that'll give you an idea of how many baggies were floating around my living room.:)

This was taken about 12:30am right after I sealed the last bag.

Once that was done I had to figure out how to get all of them in my suitcases.

Enter Space-saver Vacuum Cubes.

I wish I had been able to take pictures of THAT process.

You would have laughed. Trust me.

In the end I got everything packed.

WOOHOO!

And I leave on Saturday morning.

Well, I actually leave Justin tomorrow evening because I am staying the night in a hotel near the airport with my girls from ATL so no one has to get up in the wee hours of the morning to take us to the airport. Our flight leaves at 6am and then we'll meet the rest of our team in DC before we fly out to Africa.

It's finally here!

Please remember to pray for me and my team. Satan likes to play games in the hours before a trip like this. Pray also for those of us leaving our babies behind - this Momma's heart is sad already.

Most of all pray that through us the love of the Father would envelope the sweet kids we'll be with and that they will know Him who sent us.

I should have internet access at least a few days of the trip and will be updating facebook for sure and the blog as much as possible. If you aren't my friend on facebook and want to be just search Stephanie Dowden Moon. :)

See ya on the flip side!