Showmanship

Here come the judge!  Here come the judge!  (sorry, couldn't resist)

Morgan Girl, me and Equestrian Girl sharing a laugh before Showmanship class.

Me and Equestrian Girl doing some last minute strategizing.

She does showmanship so pretty - look at the way her legs line up with Stanley's.  

And still stepping out with the same foot.  So perfect!

Judge liked the set-up - she is smiling!!

More on Hole Shots

My favorite part of motocross is the start and the hole shot.  It just amazing how much everything can change in just a few seconds...Motocross Boy is #55 on the far RIGHT side of the first picture this time. New strategy and it worked!!

Just racing...

It's all about passing the guy in front of you, isn't it?  And if you are #1 - it's all about keeping that spot.

Starting Gate

Getting off the gate without trouble is ultra important but also hard to do.  Motocross Boy is #55 on the far left of the first picture.

Strong start - one of the first off the gate.

Still looking good but #146 is right there too.

Uh oh!  #146 is having trouble!  You don't want to wheelie off the gate!

Almost off his bike and Motocross Boy pulls ahead!

How the heck did he do that?  This is literally 2 seconds later and the bike is back on the ground and he's already catching up!

And pulling ahead...

Girls at Motocross

Plenty of girls race motocross.  But there are also plenty of sisters that just come along to watch.  What do they do all day?

Hang out.

Hang out more.

And flirt with boys.

Jumping! Otherwise known as catching air...

Every motocross rider loves to catch air.  It takes guts.  Motocross Boy is just starting to jump more consistently.

Hole Shot

An important part of motocross racing is the "hole shot".  It's not important who gets off the gate first, it's who makes it up and around a corner about 100 yard out first that's "fast" and wins the "hole shot".  Making it to this point puts that person in the lead off the start but it doesn't always mean they can maintain that lead!

All of these pictures are taken literally just seconds apart and you can see how fast everything can change.  Motocross Boy is #55 and starts out second to the left...

A beautiful summer night ride

Being in Michigan where we have 3 months of summer and 9 months of winter (well, sort of anyway) we love to take advantage of being able to ride outside in the summer.  This week we had one of those evenings that was so perfect.  The sky was clear, the sun was setting, there was a nice breeze and all was right in our little world.

Equestrian Girl had chosen that night to work on her English Equitation.  She has a big show coming up tomorrow and winning the equitation classes could make all the difference in how she ends up in the year end awards.  Here's  video of one of the practice patterns with Stanley.

Bowling???

Yep.  Bowling.  We were looking for something fun to do with Grandma and Grandpa.  Something they could do easily enough (anyone can bowl, right?) but that didn't require driving a long way or spending too much time out in the hot sun.  We wanted to surprise them but ended up having to tell them where we were taking them when Grandpa started fretting about what shoes to wear and if it would be hot and how they should dress.  He was pretty convinced we were taking them to a local air show but I hadn't even considered that!!

So we went bowling and in spite of Grandma's protests that she was just going to watch, we got her into the fun and I think she enjoyed herself a whole lot more than she expected!!

Grandpa figured it had been about 50 years since he'd been bowling but it all came back to him after a while.

Though he didn't look too happy with this throw.

Motocross Boy had some serious mojo form going after this toss.

And he went into it all smiles.

But it just didn't work out right.

Equestrian Girl wasn't too thrilled with the idea of bowling but got into the swing of it pretty good.

And she had plenty of smiles!