Monster Truck Fun Run

Tis the season for fun runs. This weekend was Owen's school's color run where they throw colored chalk at you while you run. Who decided this was fun? I don't know, but I guess kids love it. Here is before...

And after - this pic doesn't do justice to Owen's bright orange hair or Hadley's blue face spot. The inside of Owen's ear was blue for days. This is post-race lunch in the sun, since I didn't run with my camera. It was a beautiful day! Commence the yard work!

Later that evening was a family first: a monster truck show! Owen wanted to be able to see everything, so he picked the very back row. They were pretty good seats! Although right as the show started, the wind picked up and the temp dropped 20 degrees. I had to go get a blanket from the car at intermission because we were all freezing! 

Before we sat down, we checked out the monster trucks' pit party. We didn't wait in line for driver autographs, but it was interesting to see the things up close. Needless to say, the kids were pretty stoked about this! Especially a certain wheel connoisseur.

Once they got going, they were pretty loud! This truck broke a rear shock and strut tower (or something like that) right after this and was out for the rest of the night. That seemed to be a theme for the night, as we got down to only two monster trucks (out of 4) for the final freestyle competition and one of those died in the middle of his run.

But don't worry, we did have hearing protection for the kids!

Another fun spectacle was the extreme figure 8 racing, where these crummy cars push and crash each other around a figure 8 track. So many cars were smoking, sputtering, and losing pieces left and right! I can't say if it's normal to need that many vehicles pushed off of the track by a forklift and a skid steer, but it seemed a little backwoods Idaho... The mega-trucks (regular truck bodies with giant wheels) also faired about 50% failure rate. Tough sport!

Lastly, Owen had an early dismissal this week on a warm day, so we biked to the zoo from our house. I love that we can do this!

We had to see the lion cub that was just reunited with his mom!

And more babies. There were about 16 new ducklings in the pond.

And a strange new baby chicken! Actually, it's a rhea (like an ostrich), whose dad was a little too aggressive. So he's being raised by a chicken, kind of like the dog who raised the lion cub for a few months.