Tejas Rodeo Lawnmower Races

At the beginning of November (because that is how far behind I am in this thing. Good grief!!) we went to San Antonio to hang out for the weekend with Mary and Wayne and Matt, who was still in his Career Course. 

Maimie with her boys.

Bennett is learning his letter sounds, one per week. He has known his alphabet forever now, but since we aren't doing the popular preschool at age three thing, I felt it was my responsibility to make sure Bennett wasn't the, ahem, "slow" kid in his class once he does start school. This was the first week we did this, as you can tell by the fact that we are on letter "A." Mary was so cute and threw Bennett a Letter A Party, where we all ate and drank off labeled plates and cups and sang the, "A says aah!" song. Just as a side note, we are now on letter "F", and Bennett is coming along swimmingly. I have high hopes that he will not be the child wearing the dunce hat come next year. Probably he'll just be the child in the timeout corner :)

 Patton was also an object of great attention. Because when you're this cute, it's just wrong not to be.

 While we were there we got to go to our first ever lawnmower race. Yes, these are real. And yes, they are awesome. Most of the riders were pretty fast and had sponsors and everything. It was a lot more serious than I thought it would be...but still pretty hilarious.

Matt and Bennett, cheering for the blue guy.

Maimie and Pop with Patton, who was a sport and even took a nap with his little earplugs in. 

(Our camera lens was really dirty. Can you tell?)

 Matt's grandma and grandpa who live in the cabin on Mary and Wayne's property came along for the fun. I think Grandpa snuck a nap in during the races as well. Pretty impressive if you can understand what seven souped-up riding lawnmowers sound like under a tin roof.

Afterwards we got to meet the riders. Bennett's favorite was "The white guy," who he cheered for all morning like this, "Go white guy! I want the white guy to win! I like white!" It was just a little bit racist sounding...

 

 Matt's favorite was number 396. I think this guy actually did win.

My favorite was number 21, although I'm not sure any rider actually wanted me cheering for them since every time I picked a "winner" they ended up in a hay bale at some point during the race. Matt says that if I love our children I wont cheer for them once they start sports.

This one was all of our favorites.

Some of the riders gave out autographed pictures of themselves riding their lawnmowers through fantastic Photoshopped flames. You know this is getting a frame somewhere.

During the intermission I went to the car and fed Patton, while these two rode a tractor-train. I don't know who had more fun, Matt or Bennett.

And after a long day at the races, we all ate an amazing lunch at the Tejas Rodeo Restaurant (maybe. We actually couldn't remember the real name of the restaurant, so we guessed. But it was delicious.)

Long live Lawnmower races!
Yeeee-haawwww!