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!

Pole Bending!

Stanley spent the first 13 years of his life learning to be an all around pleasure horse.  His forays into speed events have been pretty low key but this year Equestrian Girl kicked it up a notch.  While Stanley starts out slightly confused as to what exactly he's supposed to be doing with these poles, he gets the hang of it going back and kicks butt!!

Flag Race!

Stanley enters the arena in his pleasure horse form but ears perked ready for his first clue as to what they are doing out there...

Equestrian Girl checks out the lay of the land ready to give Stanley the cue to GO!

I missed go.  But they successfully grabbed the flag from the first bucket and were off like a shot!

Rounding the second barrel they were flying!

Approaching the drop point Equestrian Girl is smiling and trusting Stanley to hug that barrel.

He tips his nose in for her and she successfully makes the drop!

and they are off again!!

Flying in past the finish line!