Shortly after we posted Julia and Joe’s school pictures, we were notified that William’s was on its way. Had we received it a bit sooner, we could have consolidated all three into a single post, but then we wouldn’t have anything to talk about now, would we?

Without further ado, here’s William’s kindergarten portrait.

His hair is a little long in this picture—and it’s even longer now—but his joyful demeanor comes through pretty clearly. You can find the full-size version, as well as all his past school pictures, in his album.

One event has come to play a central role in our Octobers over the last ten-odd years: the Booksin Walkathon. This year was William’s second official walkathon, and though he wasn’t as outwardly enthusiastic as some Booksin kids, he was motivated enough to want to be there right at the start of the event.

He began the morning walking with me, but the person he really wanted to walk with was Macey, the girl we have been informed that he is going to marry. He spent most of the day walking with Macey or playing with Macey on the side of the course, and when he wasn’t doing one of those two things, he was looking for Macey. It’s not 100% clear whether his ardor is completely reciprocated, but they did seem to have a good time.

In the picture above, Will had just finished his twelfth mile, and in doing so, had earned a candy reward. Macey was still one lap short, so she and Will were pinky promising to meet up at the awards desk to get their candy together.

This is where I came in and—to hear William tell it—messed things up. It seemed silly to me for Will to just wait for Macey at the candy table, especially since it was getting late in the afternoon and he still had a couple miles to go to reach the next prize level. With that in mind, I convinced him to try to catch up with Macey so they could finish her twelfth mile together and get their candy at the same time. Unfortunately, finding her on the course proved harder than I had imagined, and after we finished another lap, Will insisted we head over to the awards desk where, naturally, Macey had already obtained her candy and was wondering why Will had ditched her.

It mostly worked out in the end: Macey had Fun Dip and William enjoyed a Rice Krispies Treat. But William solemnly informed me that I was responsible for a grave faux pas: forcing him to break a pinky promise. Hopefully I’ll be able to live it down someday.

After the pinky promise misadventure, William was really starting to slow down: twelve miles is a pretty good distance for a six year old to cover in a single day. At around 3:30, with about half an hour left in the Walkathon, I thought he was four laps, or about 1.3 miles, short of the 14 miles he needed to earn a frozen treat. I asked him if he wanted to go for it and, to my surprise, he assented. We walked the next two laps at a decent pace, but were still a bit short on time. Will still wanted his ice cream, however, so we ran a good portion of the last couple laps, and made it with minutes to spare.

In the end, he was credited with 15 miles for the day, one more than I thought we’d covered. I’m not entirely sure whether I lost track or there was an error at the lap punching station—both seem equally likely given my mental state after having spent seven hours walking in circles in the sun—but he was derservedly proud of his achievement.

Julia and Joe didn’t miss out on the festivities, either. Even though they’ve been gone from Booksin for several years, UPA has annual community service requirements for its students, and opportunities to pick up big chunks of volunteer hours all at once are golden. Thus, they—and Julie—were at school at 5:45 in the morning to help set up, and they spent the day punching lap cards, handing out awards, working the concessions booth, and helping out at the Crazy Hair station. Julie and Julia even stayed for an extra hour or two after the Walkathon ended to help clean up.

As you can no doubt imagine, everyone slept well that night.