NASCAR

GENTLEMAN....START YOUR ENGINES!!!

Pure and unrestrained joy...The magic of NASCAR is epitomized in this picture of our little Hurricane watching as the cars warmed up for the big race! Jackson clapped for every car (Justin is still working on teaching him that this is Dale Jr. country) and even threw out a couple of, "woo...a-hooo's!!".


Our assigned seats were really much better than this, but we decided to get up as high as we could to help eliminate more of the noise from the track. Also - it's NASCAR - which means pretty much every other fan is lighting up a cigarette and throwing back a beer. To get away from the smell of second-hand smoke we had to move up quite a bit...BUT - Another added bonus from sitting so high was that we could let the boys run around between cars.

Wilde Boys at the race. I sense a tradition brewing! :)

Mommy and Jackson (who insisted on pulling his hood up for the picture. Why? You tell me. :)

Wilde Boys part II! (The sippy cup only appeased Eddie for so long...He was definitely eyeing the turkey legs.)

Mommy and Eddison (whose face is PRICELESS!!! LOLOLOLOL!!!!)

Daddy and Eddie rooting for Dale Jr.


Eddison's First Race

The title says it all! Imagine if you will - RV's for as far as the eye can see, turkey legs the size of small dogs, non-age discriminatory mullets, headphones, leather jackets with "pieces of flare" representing sponsors like Home Depot, Mountain Dew, ARMY, Lowe's, UPS, M & M's, and more. There is no end to the magic as stereotypes come to life during NASCAR month and Speed Week here in the Queen City!

With the boys' fascination with cars and all-things-mobile in general, we were excited for the opportunity to take them to their FIRST Nascar event this past weekend. Justin scored some free tickets (which included VIP parking - thank goodness!) for four to the pole race / truck event through a buddy at work (thank you Kevin!). The only concern we had was whether Jack and Eddison would keep their ear-plugs in. Believe me when I tell you that I have NEVER encountered anything louder than a stadium with tens of thousands of (mostly) drunken NASCAR fans and twenty high-speed cars going 120+ mph. The noise is deafening and literally painful if you have no ear protection! So our whole outing hinged on whether we could ensure our children wouldn't be leaving the stadium with a permanent hearing impairment. Luckily BOTH of our champs loved watching the cars so much that they left their earplugs alone! :)

Jackson was in heaven! His excitement made the entire experience totally worth it and Justin and I can't wait to take him to some Speed Week events later in the month. Eddison loved watching for about an hour and a half and then became extremely tired and hungry (by this time it was well past his dinner and bedtime)...So we ended up cutting our stay short to get the little frog in bed.

I hate to admit it, but there is something patriotic and exciting about sitting in a NASCAR stadium! The energy of the fans is catching and Justin and I are thinking about going to the next event without the kids - just so we can stay for the whole thing and really enjoy it! Have we been in NC too long or what?! LOL!!! At least we haven't sold our home to buy an RV so we can follow the racing circuit...yet! ;)