and now she can wake board ..

jeff "borrowed" sydnee for a few days this week .. he brought her back to the lake bound and determined to send her home with some serious wake boarding stories .. 

so we loaded up in the boat .. covered ourselves with sunscreen and headed out ..

i told jay and misty and we might not bring her back .. that didn't go over very well .. look at that face though .. who would want to take this sweet girl back .. 

jeff sat in the water with her and went over the basics .. hold the handle this way .. turn the board this way .. and if you crash .. let go !!

so we got her all squared away .. got cash his "hot red chips" .. ellie took her spot and i took mine .. camera at the ready .. after all jay and misty were in okc .. so we wanted to be able to send them updates as the day went on .. 

just a few crashes .. 

it didn't take her long at all .. 

she is now an official graduate of jeff's school of wake boarding .. i might need to get t-shirts made .. 

after sydnee mastered wake boarding it was time to move onto tubing .. with no hands .. 

jeff asked if he was not pulling them fast enough .. how is it that they can tube with no hands .. 

magic i said .. 

and then cliff jumping .. 

more tubing ..

and then in true boating day fashion .. cash fell asleep at the end of the day .. 

we went home sore .. tired .. sun burned .. and all excited about going to big splash the following day .. 

family boat night ..

Since my dad just got back from his 9000 mile motorcycle trip to nova scotia .. newfoundland and prince edward island .. yes he rode his motorcycle the entire way .. we thought that it might be nice to load everyone up in the boat and enjoy an evening on the lake .. 

because who wouldn't want to laugh with granny ..

and snuggle with granny ..

and wake board while the sun is setting ..

or tube with grandpa .. 

WHAT ??

yes .. that's right .. tube with grandpa ..

yes .. jeff went fast .. and yes he did flip them off .. and yes .. grandpa got back on ..

so grandpa can:

1) ride 9000 miles on his motorcycle

2)  be flung around the lake on the tube

3)  and still get back into the boat 

so after .. laughing .. snuggling .. wake boarding and tubing we went to the landings for dinner ..

we talked about dad's motorcycle trip .. our trip to montreal .. the fact that school starts in 17 days and that none of us are ready for the ease of summer to be over .. to borrow a term from JT .. we like being "agendaless"

we boated home under the stars and the army helicopters on night maneuvers .. 

as all family boat nights are .. it was perfect and wonderful 

ellie .. nor cash for that matter .. will ever forget the night that grandpa went tubing .. 

nor will i .. 

a night at the races ..

saturday night the kids and i .. and jeff .. loaded up and headed out to mike's house .. he lives somewhere about 30 minutes from the shop .. we has built an rc car track .. remember rc stands for "remote control" .. in his back yard .. yes he has a big back yard .. 40 acres or so big .. so he has room ... lots of room .. 

we are late .. the racing started at 6 .. we got there a little before 8 .. lucky for us though noah was racing when we got there .. this is important to 2 small people that were traveling with me ..

see what i mean .. noah has a fan club ..

this is the drivers stand .. when you are racing you stand up here and control your car .. since you are up nice and high you can see who is about to pass you or who is about to run over you ..

these little things fly through the air ..

and crash into each other ..

jeff is visiting with mike and rachel .. i am sure that he is talking about how fast he would be able to drive an rc car .. and that no one would be able to go as fast as he could and that if someone did pass him then he would run over them and knock them out of the race .. i am also sure after he said all this he then asked mike if he could borrow one of his rc cars and show them how it is done .. and i am also sure that mike said NO !!!

thank goodness .. 

noah .. you can really race !!!

ellie wanted to check out what it looked like up top .. pretty cool she said .. 

not only does mike have an rc car track in his back yard .. he also has heavy equipment .. bulldozers .. bobcats and tractors .. do you see where i am going with this .. 

i am thinking that while jeff was trying to convince mike to let him take a lap with one of his rc cars .. mike said .. why don't you take the bull dozer for a spin .. 

jeff would do much less damage with a bull dozer .. 

go dig that pond a little deeper for me would you ..

and yes that is cash driving ..

dad the bucket isn't going up .. dad did you break it .. dad you are going to be in big trouble with mike and now he isn't going to let us drive his heavy equipment anymore .. oh dad .. why did you break it .. i wanted to move that huge pile of dirt over there ..

mom .. can we go home now .. dad broke the bobcat

this is half of the track .. my big wide angel lens was in the shop .. the other half looks about like this half 

this is toby brown .. 

he keeps track of all the cars .. it is a pretty involved deal .. all the cars have a sensor of sorts on them .. kinda like the chip that you put on your tennis shoe when you run a marathon .. and then they pass by the timer and it shows how fast the car ran the lap .. 

anyway .. he is in charge .. don't bug him with a million questions about the whole thing because he has to watch the cars and announce who is winning and lap times .. he does not have time for idle conversation ..

this is the pits .. spare parts .. racing fuel .. generators .. there is an electric class of rc cars .. eco-friendly if you will .. and of course they have to be charged .. so naturally you load a generator into the back of your truck and plug it in when you get to the race .. so you can charge your eco-friendly car .. and run the lights in your pits .. and your air tools and keep the diet coke cold in your portable refrigerator .. stuff like that .. 

look at all those tires .. it seems that depending on how the "track" is .. determines what kind of tread you  want on the tire that you use ..

this is a highly complicated and involved hobby .. 

can you imagine us involved with this .. 

jeff hollaring .. babe bring me the v tread tires ..

me .. what ???

you could see all the pop up tents/pit areas from the highway .. if you weren't sure where you were going .. you would know when you saw it from the road ..

after you run your race you then have to help marshall the next race .. this means running at lightening speed over those black barriers and up and down the little hills and flipping back over any cars that were crashed into and turned over .. mike made little seats to sit on .. white buckets with numbers on them .. whatever position you finish in is what bucket/spot on the track you go to .,,

see .. also highly organized .. 

now .. image me doing this .. i can hardly run in a straight line .. much less run fast while hoping over black barriers uphill .. makes me laugh just thinking about it .. it would be like when i tried to paddle the canoe with ruth .. they would tell me .. you know what .. we got this part handled .. you just go back to your pop up tent and drink a diet coke .. 

the races run late late into the night ... mike said they finished about 1:30 sunday morning .. 

now you have to pack up your tires .. race fuel .. air tools .. eco-friendly car and

generator and go home .. 

hopefully with bragging rights and good stories ..

me .. i went home with 2 dirt covered and sweaty kids that could not stop talking about how fast noah went and the fact that jeff broke mikes bob cat and that now mike was never ever going to let cash drive it again because his dad broke it .. 

the biodome ...

we love love love to ride public transportation when we travel .. maybe this is because we don't have subways where we live .. or any other form of public transportation for that matter .. 

so we are heading out to what was at one time the Olympic park in 1976 ..

2 subway rides and a handful of stops later we arrive .. 

pretty interesting looking isn't it .. of course you can go to the top of the observation tower .. and yes we did this .. jeff loves all things that are tall that you can go up in and look out ..

 i do as long as there is an elevator to the top !

poor kids .. i can't see anything momma .. maybe that 's because it's pointing up at the sky 

the soccer field .. an the triangle looking building in the background is where all the athletes stayed .. 

i love this picture .. it completely sums up my family when we travel .. we have not even been in the tall tower 5 minutes and jeff is already looking at the next stop on his long list of things that we are going to see for the day .. cash has seen something that is totally awesome and is getting ready to shout "momma look at that" at the top of his lungs so that everyone in the observation tower can hear him .. and ellie .. she is thinking of something sweet and wonderful .. probably granny .. or that pretty dress we saw in the window on the way over .. 

after spending our "allotted time" in the tall tower we moved over to the bio dome .. which is where the swimming events where held ..

it's now a zoo of sorts .. they had 3 little ecosystems in there and animals

and then of course .. there was the pool .. 

and yes cash hollared awesome at the top of his lungs .. and it's huge momma .. 

they have public swim monday thru friday from 3-5 .. had jeff known this we would have brought our swimming suits .. would have been kinda neat to swim in an olympic pool .. 

but we didn't .. and we didn't ever make it back over there either ..