We arrived into Laramie around 9:30PM or so, a smidge over 13 hours on the road, and caught the end of the NBA finals as the kids unwound a bit. Nora was quite happy as she received her very own Tinkerbell inflatable bed plus sleeping bag. She laid down in the living room, her brother quickly passing out on the couch in his sleeping bag, and quickly scurried into the bedroom with mommy and daddy as it was scary, so, she slept quite comfortably IN HER OWN LITTLE BED ! Score one Gramps Lance !

Friday dawned a day as you might imagine, but thankfully the kids were in decent spirits and agreeable, getting through breakfast, dressed up, and over to Great Gran’s house without so much as a moan or sigh. Once there, they were very cordial to folks there and those that arrived, introducing themselves as “Hi, my name is Tyler Erben and I am five years old and this is my…”, “Hi, my name is Nora and I am three”. Ok, that did that once or twice, then Tyler was off to play and Nora turned on her bashfulness mode. Nora found pleasure fixing Great Grans table on the back patio, getting underneath it with her diaper in wide view, and performing mechanic like operations, noises, and gestures with some toys. She then wandered around in the backyard, enjoying the pretty flowers.

Around 10:30 or so, we began making our way to the church for services. The kids did quite well, listening as well as one could expect (or even better) for their ages. Nora the past few days has requested to go to the poddie on her own, and done so, going with a dry diaper from Boise to Laramie, and so far today batting 1.000 as well after a little bit of a wet one this morning. Tyler, Nora, and their cousin Reese made it about 15 minutes into the services before their gentle clapping at the songs, and fishing with some flowers (I felt guilty videoing it, but it was awesome) turned into a bit more uncontrolled energy, and we made an exit from the packed church to saunter around and burn off some energy.

After a visit to the cemetery, we had an enjoyable reception at the Laramie Country Club, with Nora enjoying the Chicken Penne Pasta as any good child of mine should, and Tyler, out of the blue, deciding he was hungry and dining on some steak and potatoes, with about five pieces of bread. We kicked off our shoes and dipped them in the pool for a bit, and finally wandered back to Gramma’s house around 4:00 ish, the kids getting to ride in the back of the Tahoe, as seen below as they relaxed before our short drive.

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Could I have been more wrong?! Tyler and I played 11 games, of which I won 4. Yes… Tyler is the Uno champion. The first couple of games, I was not playing “ruthless”. I mean, I am playing a 4 year old, albeit not for long. I decided to change my tactic and try and actually win a few games… I still lost.

And not only does he understand the rules, he also has the strategy down. He’s using the “skip” cards and changing the colors with the numbers, and I even happened to notice at one point, when I had laid down a Wild card to change the color and I only had one card in my hand (Uno). I noticed that even though he had the “red” card in his hand, he played his own Wild card to prevent me from winning the game.

I have a feeling that I have a future professional poker player in the family!

After an hour or so in the kitchen, we had some seasoned pork chops, corn on the cob, and Nora’s favorite — noodles ! Notice how she teaches her baby doll, who’s sitting with her at the table eating, how to properly eat noodles.

Thanks Granny and Gramma

http://wyomtncabin.blogspot.com/2009/06/tyler-granny-aunt-lauren-and-gramps.html

Tyler points out to me that I need to watch for rain deer (deer that come out when it rains).

We nabbed a bite to eat, then took a tour around Whiskey Row in downtown Prescott. We enjoyed a tasty dip of ice cream, then headed back to the hotel.

We arrived pretty early, gates opened at 6:30, event started at 7:30, and we were in our seats with grub by about 6:50.  A couple hot dogs, a bag of kettle korn, and some drinks quickly disappared as they had some activities going on such as quad-wars warmups (four-wheeler racing), and some event with a couple people from the crowd.  Nora sits still about as well as Ralph keeps his nose out of the cat box, so after she waxed her dog, we were cruising around checking out the Idaho Center.  Some of her favorite activities include running away from daddy as fast as she can laughing; walking up the stairs, then walking down them without holding the railing;  staring at the people around with a straight-faced, stoic look.  Around 7:20, we headed back to our seats as the crowd filled up quite a bit.  I was curious how these “economic” times would impact the show, and, the reasonably priced $17/seat tickets (Nora was free, but had to be wrangled into your lap) were pretty full on both sides, with the upper rows at each end pretty lean.

I forgot how much of an entertainment event Monster Trucks is — much like WWE/WWF/whatever, but with horsepower and dirt.  The emcee was pretty good, and had folks wound up fairly well as they started right at 7:30.  The Idaho Center is a pretty tight arena for the trucks, but afforded one the ability to see the ‘pit’ area they had setup at one end and such.  There were six trucks for this show — Arachnaphobia, Captain USA, Jurrasic Attack, Maniac, Medusa, and the king of the show, Grave Digger (probably second only to Bigfoot in Monster Truck lore, perhaps even greater within the community).  Interesting to Flossie and myself, Medusa and Jurrasic Attack were both controlled by ladies behind the wheel.  Anyway, the starting event is similar to say the introductions at an NBA basketball game (think of a home game at Chicago in the Jordan days, or LA a few years back).  Each truck proceeded out, made a lap or so around as the announcer boomed and the crowd roared — all for naught really as the roar of the trucks, deafening, yet so beautiful overtook most of the audible tones one could process.  There is a definite hierarchy to the system, as Grave Digger was the last out, and Dennis Anderson piloted to the “lose is fast and on the edge of out-of-control” mantra very well.

After the intros, they filed into the pit area, and two of the trucks came out to race.  The race was basically 1 and a half laps around, taking three “hits” at the jumps and junker cars underneath.  Tyler seemed to be fairly immune to the emotions of the event.  He was attentive, but was affixed to Flossie’s lap to get a better view over the fans in front of him, but was not overly yappy about the event.  I asked him a few times if “this was cool” and he said “yes dad it is.”  Nora on the other hand was all into the event with a somewhat rarer public display of emotion for her.  While she is a fireball around those she is comfortable with, like Tyler, she clams up pretty good around people she does not know, or unfamiliar surroundings.  However, she was comfortable now, and the sound through her hearing protection apparently was no bother as the hammering of big blocks reverberating off the metal superstructure did not freak her out, but rather, you could almost tell she had adrenaline running through her veins.  As the trucks raced around, she watched, standing up on my things, following the trucks around.  She got into the clapping quite a bit, her favorite was lassoing my hands and smacking them together harder and harder, faster and faster, all with a huge smile.

After some races, it was time for a heat with Medusa and Grave Digger, the two top bills of the event.  While the previous races were entertaining, this one was an entirely different event.  Grave Digger hit it harder, faster, and flew exponentially farther than others.  After a few heats, Grave Digger had a solo run, and after his run, he whipped it around and spun a cookie, one of the coolest sights and sounds you will see.  Keep this in mind for later…

As the night went on, we had quad-war heats as the trucks reset for the next event and such.  Nora and Tyler were doing fairly well, Nora was very restless, entertained, but very adventurous.  Popcorn would keep her calmed for a few minutes, but it only lasted so long.  After the trucks finished up their first event, the motorcycle jump was brought out and three dirt-bikers came out and entertained for 15 minutes, flying through the air doing some of the craziest stuff I have seen in person, landing everything on queue, it was just unreal to witness.  As this was going on, Tyler and Flossie made a trip to the restroom and to pickup a souvenir, then came back, and Nora went on a quick walk with Flossie.  Then it was time for the trucks and the freestyle event.

In the freestyle, each truck gets a chance to make a few laps, hitting jumps and performing various events to wow you — all for a score from the judges.  There was a larger jump that was not in play in the races that was used a fair amount as the contestants took turns.  Then, again, her comes Grave Digger.  Again, another notch above, he just flew around the track, almost like he had his foot on the floor the whole time, slidding, straightening it out, hitting the jump with it hammered, landing and heading to the next trick.  After clearing his run, it was time again for a cookie — but, with the tight confines, he just missed it and, whoosh, over he went onto his side.  The crowed roared — it was pretty awesome.

The kids were still in good spirits as the show came to an end.  I was a tad worried the extreme noise, or the lateness (it was about 10:00 when we made it out to the car) of the hour, but even without a nap that day for Tyler, and Nora’s 15-minute power-nap at daycare, they were still chatty in the backseat.  In fact, Nora found a nice combination of odd sounds as we waited in the parking lot that sufficiently annoyed her brother, yet, did not dig into the nervous system of the parents.  After a few minutes back on the road home, both kids were zonked, and so ended another night in Idaho…

Well, Tyler was entralled with the movie, and after our second trip out of the theater, Nora and I have spent the past hour playing with baby…in the Tahoe…so it goes…

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