Nana and Papa and NASCAR

Greetings friends and family,

The 4 Webbs are living it up in grandparent land.  With only one week between Kendra's parents and my parents visiting we are on a roll.  My dad has been a NASCAR fan for decades, but never took the opportunity to see a race live.  The timing just happened to work out for their visit to overlap with the Subway Fresh Fit 500 race about 40 minutes from my house.  The two of us made a full day of the event and our efforts to make it happen paid off.  Phoenix International Raceway is enormous with 78,000 seats in the grandstands.  

Being a part of something that huge with so many people focused on the same event was exciting to say the least.  Our seats were outstanding because we were just past the finish line up high enough to see the entire track.  The only way it could have been better is if we were had some shade instead of relying on our hats and sun screen to keep the AZ sun from beating down on us.

The race roared to a start and I caught this picture of the first lap around the back stretch.

This is looking down from our seats as Jeff Gordon flew by.  The cars go so fast that it's tough to see which car it is.  They look like a blur and sound like a swarm of bees amplified by 1,000 times in a megaphone up to your ear.  

The sights and sounds and smells are incredibly more engaging than on TV and we didn't have to sit through Viagra commercials every four minutes.  I convinced the guy behind us to take a picture and this gives a good perspective of how close we were to the action on the track.  I'm fairly certain this is my favorite picture of the week.

Nana and I headed to the Museum of Natural History for a show-n-tell extraordinaire hosted by Easton and Layla.  Unfortunately the museum is CLOSED on Mondays and I neglected to call and confirm the place was open.  The twins were very flexible and didn't have a tantrum when we were turned away at the doors.  We opted for the second place idea:  going to the mall and the park.  First stop was the Disney store where princess and Cars 2 gear abounds.  The twins had a blast touching every piece of merchandise in the store.    

Nana and I took a break on the  bench at the lizard park while Easton and Layla made new friends...  Many new friends. They've taken a new interest in swings and Nana helped with the basics because she's been through that stage at least three times with Joanie's crew.  Spending time together is the most important part no matter what Nana does with us.  The twins understand that and love on her the whole time they are here.

You might be asking, "what happened to Easton's hair?"  Kendra decided to give him a buzz cut and she used the really, really short guard by accident.  He's cool with it though.  Easton said, "we have the same hair cut now, Dad!"

Nana made his day by buying him a new Lego set from the official Lego store.  He was excited to show it to Kendra and I'm sure he'll get many hours of use over the next several years.

Papa and I took the twins out after dinner for our on-going search to see Hootie the owl again.  Last night as Kendra and I drifted off to sleep we heard the owl calling out from the tree next to our backyard.  No such luck tonight with the twins, but we had fun hunting!

Our adventures are stringing together nicely with Nana and Papa here.  I'm on vacation this week and I gotta say this has been one of the best Monday's in a long time.

See you soon!