Tombstone Tales Weekend

Life is slowing down just a tad.  This weekend was insane, and we're still recovering and trying to keep up with the things that are still coming our way.  Friday I had Tombstone Tales in the morning and evening, and just after that Brian and I raced over to the stake adult Halloween party.  We used our Queen of Hearts and Mad Hatter costumes, and we danced and ate yummy brownies.

On Saturday I ran the Halloween Scream and Scram 5K.  I don't know how I did time-wise.  I had Runkeeper going the whole time, and according to that the race was a little bit longer than a 5K, plus I forgot to stop the timer for a minute after I stopped running.  Even if I might not have gotten a great time, I felt like I kept up a good pace.  I did 5 and 1 minute intervals, and I really tried to push myself while running.  My next race is on Thanksgiving morning, and I'm switching my training to try to run for at least 10 minute intervals.  I don't know - Logically, it feels like I need to try to get to where I run the whole thing without stopping, but I really enjoy the intervals.  I like running just a bit harder for a while, because I know I'll be able to rest soon, and I feel like I'm losing more weight this way than the times I would just run...and run and run and run.

While I was running on Saturday, Brian took the kids to the Primary Program Practice at the church, and then I raced over to join them as soon as I was done.  Our family sang "A Child's Prayer" in the program, and just before we got up to practice it, Brian's brother called and said that Great Grandpa Jacks had fallen and they were assessing whether or not to take him to the hospital.  He's in the hospital now, and we went to visit him last night for Family Home Evening.  He's a trooper!

I thought I would have time to shower before Tombstone Tales started, but with the phone calls and confusion of plans, I had just enough time to run home and grab my costume.  Megan and I were even late.  We arrived at the cemetery about three minutes before the first group was supposed to start.  I grabbed my costume and threw it on, grabbed the van key from the key ring to stuff in my boot, then ran across the street.  It was then I remembered that I had left my family's tickets in the car.  I ran back across the street, and pulled the van key out of my boot to unlock the car, only to realize that I was driving Brian's car, not the van.  So I ran back across the street, and in my stressful state botched the first round.  Then I gave myself a good talking to and did better the rest of the time.

This year for tombstone tales, I portrayed Eunice Freeman, who was a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.  She fought against alcohol and prostitution.  She rallied to get women the right to vote, which worked pretty well.  Women gained the right in Washington State ten years before the rest of the country, besides Wisconsin, I think.  Eunice ended up going to the prison system to help reform recently released convicts and help them ease back into society by finding them housing and jobs.  In 1919 she was visiting her home in Portland when Clarence Johnson, one of those recently released convicts, broke into her house to steal things and beat her to death with a lead gas pipe.  Quite sad, actually.  My station in the cemetery was right after a bootlegger, so we started things with me in his station just as the tour group was arriving, and I would yell at him for corrupting our community, and he would tell me to leave him alone and such, then I would stomp off, yelling, "You haven't heard the last of me, Mr. Clark!"  He would then have something incredibly witty to say about those crazy temperance ladies to start his spiel, and I kept waiting for him to say something like, "Yeah, she'll be back again in about twenty minutes."

So Tombstone Tales was very fun.  It wasn't nearly as cold as it was last year, and it only rained a little bit.  We did have the sprinklers turn on on us once, which was pretty exciting.  Brian forgot the camera when he came through, so I had my sister record me.  I'll put up a picture and the video when I get a hold of it.