Dora signed up for her first Marathon at Big Sur which was this Sunday. She and her friend Mel arrived on Friday evening after the kids went to bed. They hung out with us on Saturday morning, then their friend Julia came pick them up and they were on their way to Monterey to prepare for the race. When Sunday came, we woke up a bit later than usual. I made pancake breakfast for Stuart for his birthday. Stuart decided to come along to watch Dora finish, so after the boys played games for a bit, we got ready to leave. I did not really push everyone to leave early and so we were behind our schedule by the time we left. We were tracking Dora on the app the whole morning and she appeared doing quite well with her speed. The boys fell asleep during the ride and we arrived Carmel after an hour and half drive. By then Dora had passed the 22 mile mark, but I could not get more updates as the app was stuck loading. We could not find parking with the first round, so Stuart dropped the boys and I off at Safeway which was near the Finish Line. For some reason I did not think Dora would finish until after 11am, so I decided to take the boys to the bathroom at Safeway first. They took quite a long time, then we rushed to the finish line, and the boys were excited to look for Auntie Dora. However it took awhile to walk through the Marathon Village and find the way back out to the observation area. We finally got ourselves in a good spot just before the crossing line and someone let the boys stand close to the fence. Just then I got a call from Dora telling us that she just finished. She completed her first Marathon with this tough hilly course in an amazing 3:58 which was better than her expectation. Due to my bad on timing, we missed seeing her finished and I was very disappointed. I took the boys back to the Village to meet up with Dora and her friends. The boys and I congratulated them on their success, then the boys were immediately drawn to the snacks Dora had in her hand. Dora shared her strawberries, banana, pretzels and raisins with the boys, and they definitely did not shy away. We chatted until Stuart was able to find a parking and joined us. We took some group pictures together, then after they gathered their jackets, we headed out to get lunch. Since none of us were very familiar with the area, I just called the first restaurant nearby with good reviews and was able to make an immediate reservation. While I was calling, Stuart put out the third row in the SUV, then we had the exhausted athletes squeezed into the car. Then it dawned on me that the restaurant was only 0.08 miles away. The one block drive and chaos to get everyone into the car was funny but definitely not to the driver. We unloaded to head into the nice restaurant to have a great meal. Our athletes seemed satisfied with their yummy burgers and started looking more tired. We drove them back to their parking garage, said goodbye to them and we went separate ways. During our ride home, the boys fell asleep again.