Sprint Cup

Because we had read that traffic can be really bad getting to the track, they headed over early Sunday morning.  They arrived around 9:30 a.m.

 Hanging out by the car for a little while before making the journey to the track.  It was a pretty long walk from the parking lot to the track (especially carrying the cooler that Ben has his feet propped on).

 Ben bought this classic M&Ms racing cap as his souvenir.

 One of Tony Stewart's cars.  This was Tony Stewart's second race back after his back injury before the start of the season.  After 50 laps, he traded driving duties with Ty Dillon.  Ben was watching with his binoculars as Tony got out of the car in the pits and Ty got in.

One of Aric Almirola's cars on display.

As John and Ben were wandering around all the displays, a couple came up to them and gave them both pre-race pit passes.  Someone in their group wasn't able to come and they were specifically looking for a father and son to give the passes.  These allowed John and Ben to go onto the track before the race.

 On track selfie

 They were down on the track for driver introductions.  Matt Kenseth is on the stage.

 After the drivers are introduced, they get in the back of trucks and are driven around the track.  Ben said the other fans let him stand on the front row.  (That's John's favorite driver Denny Hamlin in the truck.)  Ben is very annoyed with me because I didn't record the pre-race.  He thinks he was probably on TV.

 Dale Jr.

 Notice the huge clouds.  There was supposed to be thunderstorms all afternoon but the rain held off.  It made the race very exciting because the drivers thought the race would end with the rain and raced every lap like it was the final lap.  There were huge wrecks.  One included 17 cars.  Two cars went airborn flipping.

 Dale Jr was involved in two crashes.  This is his car on fire.  According to John, half the fans were ready to leave once Junior was off the track.

Hamlin leading Keselowski for a brief moment.  Keselowski ended up winning the race with Kyle Busch finishing second.

Xfinity Race

We gave Ben tickets to the Xfinity and Sprint cup races at Talladega for his birthday.  On Saturday John and Ben left our house about 8 a.m. headed to Talladega.  The Xfinity race started at 2 p.m. They arrived around noon.  They got to look around for a few minutes before finding their seats in Anniston Tower.

 You had a good view of the cars entering the pits from their seats.

 Ben's favorite driver Kyle Busch did not race in the Xfinity race.  After his major wreck at Daytona last year he decided to no longer race in Xfinity races at Superspeedways.  Kyle's car was driven by Matt Tift, who is leading in this picture.

 Ben said you could see the cars really well as they passed.  He expected them to just be blurs.  The race was exciting ending with a crash.  It took several minutes for Nascar to determine the winner, who was Elliott Sadler (on his birthday).

 There were lots of cars and other things to look at outside the track.  This is one of Dale Jr.'s cars.

Their "apartment-like" hotel room in Birmingham. It also had a small kitchen.

Girls

10 Days

It seems like I was posting three times a week for a while but then I fell off the wagon.  Here's some things that have been going on for the past 10 days.

 Manicure by Mollie Grace.

 Mollie Grace was super proud of this castle she built in the sandbox and wanted me to take her picture with it.

 The blob on the ground is Ben sliding home.

 Silly selfie.

 Saturday afternoon John rented a tiller from Home Depot and prepared a garden spot for us.  Monday evening we planted our garden (with help from Sophie) -- 4 tomatoes, 3 squash, 1 cucumber, 1 zucchini, 1 eggplant, and a watermelon that Ben talked me into buying.

 Tuesday was a busy day with our end of year CC program at lunch and a baseball game in the evening.  Nana and Grandaddy came and watched both events.

 Moments before the slide.

Mollie Grace loves the games when she has friends to play with.  Sarah Grace's brother was playing on another field.

Below is Ben batting at three different games.  I left in a video of him striking out at one game just to keep it real.  I did edit out a big argument between coaches about whether he was out at first on one hit.

Turkey

John killed this gobbler this morning.  There was no one at the camp to take a picture so he took these turkey selfies.  He knows I've got to have pictures for the blog book.

Bird's Eggs

Ben took these pics of a bird's nest with eggs that he and Silas found in a tree in Silas' backyard.

 Selfie.