Monster Jam Madness

Now, most of you know that I really love to stay busy and squeeze as much fun into one day as humanly possible, but....WOW....even I have to admit that this past weekend I think I may have packed a little too much into the short 48 hour time frame....and the endless amount of pictures on here will only give you a small sampling of our never ending weekend.

We were jumping from one thing to another beginning with the marriage retreat on Friday night. We hired a baby-sitter to watch the boys while we ate at The Bonefish Grill and then headed to church from 7:00-9:30 for part 1 of the marriage conference. What a great date....eating dinner with 2 hands and finishing all of our sentences without catching flying crayons and sugar packets, without having the ice cubes and lemons snatched out of our drinks by ketchupy fingers, and without people staring judgingly in our direction. In fact, as we left holding "grown up" hands, I'm pretty sure no one was mentally applauding our exit. A date, ahh yes I remember those and there needs to be more of them!

Bright and early the next morning we headed back to church (this time with the boys) for part two of the retreat from 8:30-12:30 (which ran over by 15 minutes setting us back just a tad). We quickly gathered up the boys, drove through Hardees for lunch, and made it up to Stafford for Mikie's friend's birthday party, only slightly late. The boys had a blast at the Monster Truck themed birthday bash and I am stealing several of these ideas for Zach's party in July. (Awesome job, Kelli!)
After a quick change of clothes in the bathroom (because when you're 4, birthday cake just doesn't taste all that great unless you get it all over your outfit), we strapped them into their car seats and enjoyed the 1 1/2 hours of silence (they slept! I should have slept!) on our drive down to Richmond. With only a short nap to recharge, we stood in the cold drizzle for 20 minutes waiting to get into the Monster Jam Pitt Party (yes, you read that correctly....we did indeed subject ourselves to yet another night of loud engines and redneck roughhousing). When I realized that this was the last time the trucks would be in this area until July, and considering how much fun the boys had at the last one, I couldn't wait to go again and this time we were even going to be able to walk right up to the trucks during the pit party. I knew they would love getting so close to the trucks and meeting the drivers, but my main goal was to get a picture of Zachary with Monster Mutt (the dog truck) so I could use it for his birthday invitations. SUCCESS!!!! The picture is adorable, don't you agree?:


Are you tired yet? I'm only half way done..........The Monster Jam Rally didn't end until 10:00 and we didn't get home until after 11:30. We no sooner shut our eyes and then had to open them again to go to church and teach our Sunday School classes in the morning. From there, we grabbed some lunch at O'Charley's and headed to the last "to do" event on Tracy's overly planned calendar: Suessical The Muscial. I'm really sad that I didn't have my camera, as it was a terrific production and Mikie enjoyed getting the autographs of four of the actors (Horton was his favorite). Zachary was enthralled with the lights, costumes, and music for the first 5 minutes, but alas his little battery did finally die out. He slept on our laps throughout the entire 2 1/2 hour show (including intermission when he raised his head long enough to be passed from Daddy to Mommy and then slipped back into his exhausted coma once again).

To end the night, I ordered up a giant snowstorm that would add an extra 20 minutes to our drive home and cause a 15 minute detour to the grocery store for some milk & sausage. When we finally arrived home, both boys opted to skip supper and head straight to bed at 6:30. Thankfully, due to the 8 inches of snow that fell, we were happily stuck at home for the next 48 hours to recuperate from the weekend.

Now if you are still reading this: THANK YOU, the fun part is next......pictures and videos!


Lenny's 5th Birthday Party (more details & picts on Kelli's blog)

Mikie & Lenny
Tire Ball Bounce (stealing this idea and the tires)

Race Track for Remote Control Truck (stealing this idea too)

Mikie drives the track

Video of reckless driving. Let's hope he improves in 12 years.

Pin the License Plate on the Monster Truck (yep, stealing this idea too)

The Cake with Great Bite the shark truck





These are two videos of a game that Zachary just loved! Very, very creative and educational, Kelli! I LOVE IT!

Zachary makes a sign to cheer for Lenny while he blows out his candles

Go Lenny! Blow them all out!

Zachary loved the ramp!

Lenny & his mom, Kelli, who organized this fantastically fun party! (Seriously, Kelli, keep it all. I will be borrowing it, PLEASE :)


Monster Jam Truck Rally in Richmond

BAD HABIT

Mikie next to the large tires.

ERADICATOR

Learning about the engine.

In this video, Zachary sees "Mon Mutt" and "Ave Igger"

Monster Mutt's driver, Whit Tarlton, signs Zachary's Monster Mutt shirt that Boagie made for him.

Doggie Kisses!

GRAVE DIGGER

BACKDRAFT

This one had flashing lights just like a real firetruck (Tate would have loved this one!)

MARTIAL LAW
(Every time this one came out Zachary would say "Blue" I think he thought it was Blue Thunder..Mikie's favorite truck)

After getting up close to the trucks, we had about 1 1/2 hours before the show started. We ate some hot dogs and bought the boys 2 new trucks. They killed the time by pushing them around while I tried to keep them from tripping people walking by.

When the amount of people increased, they were banned from the floor and decided to play on this register instead. This is a great picture of the cute shirt Boagie made for Zachary. If you click on it, you can enlarge it to see the ear, tongue, and tail. He loves the little Monster Mutt on the sleeve that he can look at. He shows it us all the time. We love it. Thanks Mom!

Time for the show to start. I'm starting to get annoyed at how Mikie can't focus long enough to take a picture. That shutter delay is just a huge inconvenience to his Monster Truck watching time.

Our little Frankenstein.

And you can't have a show without Popcorn!

The highlight of the show is when Monster Mutt ran into the wall after a slap wheelie and put a good sized hole in the brick structure. In the video, I stopped recording just as the truck slams into the wall with a loud bang. Sorry I missed it!