Last summer my cousins got the crazy idea to run Hood to Coast as a family.  For those of you unfamiliar with HTC, it's the largest relay race in North America.  1,000 teams of 12 people participate and run from Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood to Seaside, Oregon.  It's nearly 200 miles long and goes all day/all night.  We ran HTC as the Gnarly Numnuts last weekend in honor of my Uncle Bert and the weekend was so much fun that it rivaled Thanksgiving....

You're supposed to have 12 runners, we had 11 and 1/3.  My dad ran one of the extra legs and then Kyle and Brett sacrificed themselves to run an extra leg (ran a total of 4 each). Over the course of the race the majority of us ran 3 legs and averaged about 16 miles.  We all ran faster than expected and the team did really well.  Props to Lani who caught and passed a male runner at the finish of her leg and made him puke.  :)  We ranked 53rd out of 330+ in our category.  Go Numnuts!

We couldn't have had a team that would have been any more fun than the team we had.  Ay made us some sweet neon yellow t-shirts, we screamed and cheered ourselves horse, and no one turned grumpy pants as the 24 hour mark ticked by. We decided we were the most enthusiastic (and loudest) team on the course.  That won't come as a surprise to most of you... I think the most obnoxious was probably our cheering (a.k.a. screaming).  We pulled out some old Mt. Crest High School Cheers such as "you got to want it, to win it and we want it more! You got to know you're good, before you're good and we know for sure" through the middle of the night.  Too much fun.

We were met at the finish line by my parents, my aunt and an almost cousin.  We all were there to cheer Kyle across the finish and take team photos before we headed to the gorgeous beach house at Arch Cape for a couple of days.  We were all so exhausted that our "naps" were 4 - 6 hours long on Saturday.  They gave us enough juice to rally through the evening and watch the best movie for the Oregon coast -- Goonies.

Sunday and Monday were lazy days.  Of course we went to Cannon Beach, played in the tide pools at Haystack Rock (3rd largest free standing monolith in the world), walked on the beach, saw the "arch" at Arch Cape and watched crazy Collin and Kyle attempt to Boogie Board in the freezing cold ocean. An enjoyable moment for all but me was when a large seagull from above crapped all over me.   Ick!  The remainder of the time we played some serious cards, ate like we always do at a Tanner/Kalemba gathering, and had lively discussion.  I so love days with my family.... Such a party.

We had such a great time. No one wanted to leave.. but back it was to work for us on Tuesday.  Good thing Thanksgiving is just around the corner.

There were plenty of cameras and LOTS of pictures that were taken.  I've collected them all and am slowly making my way through them.  We've got all sorts of pictures from the Race and the Beach.  Check them all out at the gallery!