24 hours

This has been quite the adventurous week for us with lots of family time and fun.  

After a not so exciting start to our week, things started taking off on Thursday.  Dad and Mr. Walker were riding in a mountain bike race over the weekend that required Dad to be gone from Thursday to Sunday.  Somehow, mom and dad neglected to tell me this until I was walking out the door to school on Thursday morning.  This was horribly upsetting to me and I cried all the way to school and then I cried some more at school. (As a side note, if it was mom leaving for four days, I would have told her not to let the door hit her on the way out.)  Mom and dad both felt bad so dad surprised me by showing up at lunch with Eegees!  How cool is that!  That made my day all better.

When mom and I got home from school/work, we found Nana D and Mr. Walker waiting for us.  So, depending on whose point of view your coming from, the day got even better.  Or got worse.  I say it got better!  The reunion was short lived because dad and Mr. Walker had to head out for the race while Nana stayed back for a girls weekend with mom and me.

Friday was Valentine's day which was all kinds of fun.  We had a small party at school and one of the mom's made all of us mustaches.  That makes for a really fun day!

Because we were with Nana, we spent Friday night shopping but surprisingly, only mom bought stuff.

On Saturday, I had my first softball clinic of the season.  It went well- I'm not the best but definitely not the worst either and I'm kind of excited about the upcoming season.  Practices officially start March 3 with opening ceremonies March 22.  Mom has fond memories of opening ceremonies so we'll see if it is everything she remembered.

After that, we packed up and headed out to see the boys.  They were riding on a bike team in the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo bike race.  (That's 24 HOP for people in the know- which mom wasn't until just yesterday).  The race is through the desert about 30 miles north of Tucson (The Old Pueblo). You can ride solo or on teams of two or more and relay ride as many laps as you or your team can in 24 hours.  People start bringing out their RV's and tents the Sunday before and by Thursday, it looks like this......

Campers and tents and 3500 people packed into a relatively small area.  It's loud and chaotic and I guess it's part of the fun.  This was our little piece of that heaven.  It was actually relatively private because the team had 4 RVs and lots of cars so they made a little courtyard to hang out in.

Nana, mom and I arrived about 1 on Saturday, hung out a bit and then walked with Mr. Walker down to get ready for his day lap.  He rode again at 2AM but mom and Nana didn't think we needed to stay for that one.  We sent him moral support from our dreams.

Dat-dat rode after Mr. Walker so we headed back to our courtyard to wait for his turn to head down.  In the meantime, I made friends with these two huge dogs, Noah and Logan.  They were very sweet boys and two huge dogs are a wonderful addition to our tiny little courtyard.  There is nothing quite like a wagging Lab tail in a small space.  Their owner was riding solo so he wasn't around much which put me in charge.  I don't think those dogs have ever been walked and hugged so much in their whole lives.

We finally headed back down with dat-dat to see him off and welcome Mr. Walker back and cheer on random other cyclists.

Here is dad coming in from his day lap.  He got to ride again at 3 AM- we didn't see that one either.....

After some good racing and cheering, mom and Nana left and I got to stay for the night.  Yeah!

So Saturday night, Nana and mom got some good sleep while Mr. Walker and dad got none.  We rolled back into town about 3 on Sunday.  Mr. Walker made until 7 PM before he crashed, dad made it to 8 and both slept soundly.  They woke feeling fresh as daisies!  Their team ended up coming in 43 out of 70+ teams so that isn't too bad for a bunch of old guys.
They have already started talk about "next year"........

Hope everyone has a wonderful, restful week!