Friday, July 4, 2008
All 5.5 of us enjoyed a festive and fun-packed
4th of July. Daddy got up at
3 am. Mama was up by 5 am. Julia was up by 5:30 am. Kiana followed shortly after 6 am. Sophia was the late runner, 7:55 am, just in
time to get ready and out the door on our way to Pacific Raceways (in Kent,
Washington) for the first time for all of us.
About 5 minutes into our road trip, we
realized no one had the address. This is
one of the things that Mama feels has worked out really well for the older
girls. Whenever we run into a problem,
we talk about how to problem-solve and we don’t (or at least try not to)
panic. We agreed we’d head to Kent and
then ask at a gas station once we got there.
Problem solved, right? Only Dad’s
next question was: “Where’s Kent?!?” Luckily, Mom knew the answer to that and we
were off. We only had to stop at two
different gas stations (they gave us the same directions; it’s just that the
first one was equivocal so Dad thought we should get confirmation at a second
one . . . ) and about an hour later, we had arrived to the roar of lots of car
engines and the blur of cars whizzing by on the track.
We were in for a fun day. Dad had purchased the package at a charity
auction (mom thinks he didn’t realize he’d win!). All the stuff we got as part of the package
was really, really cool! In addition to
admission for four (for all three days), we got two programs, four caps (see
the photos below), two posters (which we got signed by Al Unser), and admission into
the “VIP” where we ate bagels, cookies, strawberry shortcake and drank lemonade
to our heart’s content. We had so much
fun, watching different categories of cars, watching them take the curves, and
seeing them trying to pass one another (we never did see any of them
succeed). The morning consisted of
qualifying timed drives and then after lunch the races started after a singing
of the Canadian and American national anthems (how perfect for July 4th). We watched the first race eagerly, Sophia
rooting for a cute #12 silver car and a cute #2 silver car (the #2 silver car
came in almost last, sadly, but another car also with a “#2” won the race!). Daddy also bought a laminated poster of the
event which Sophia got signed for us by Al Unser. Here are some photos of us from our day:
