Grandpa Blake and Grandma Penny in WV

It was sure nice to have my Dad and Penny come visit for nearly a week. They had a rough time getting hear, TSA doing their job... Agghhh... It was pretty late, but their hotel was in a good location and it all worked out well. Here are some pictures of different things we did.

Isaac showing Grandpa and Grandma the stringless harp at the Clay Center.
Grandpa, Isaac and Lexy Jo at the Clay Center.

Half of Danica, Penny and Dad at the beginning of the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine tour. This is a sweet tour on a train in the mine with a bunch of displays set up of different equipment, etc.

Grandpa and Grandma Penny at the Old School House at the Beckley Mine.

Here we are having lunch at the Omelet Shoppe. Amy loves to eat here when she is in Beckley.

Check back to this post later... I will add more pictures.

Danica in WV

Danica came to visit and help us out while Amy was in class. She came in Saturday night, stayed a week and left the next Saturday morning. She was a great help and the kids had fun. Naturally Lexy had more fun with her that Isaac, but that is how it goes with the girls. Lexy would let Danica sit anywhere the she couldn't sit next to her. She chased her around and looked up to her in a BIG way. Here are some pics of the week.

Amy, Lexy and Danica at the airport.

Grandma Penny, Lexy and Danica at the Clay Center.

Danica and Lexy making a stop motion movie at the Clay Center.

Danica and Lexy ice skating.
Danica headed out, at the airport. Thanks for ALL your help Danica...!

Lexy Jo's New Chair

Lexy got a new chair. She like to sit by Amy during the day when Amy is studying at her desk. Lexy writes letters, colors, and does learning pages. She has been dragging a stool in from the kitchen, but this works better. Sweet pink chair Lexy Jo.

Freshly assembled.Here is an action shot.

Racetime... Again...

Sorry for the gap in posting. With Danica, my Dad and Penny in town, Amy gone to school, and me not going to work, I just haven't taken the time. Boy, taking time off of work is exhausting.

Anyway, to the racing news. Sometimes I feel like this has become the Isaac (#75) Walbeck Blog. I hope I can keep some balance. We took Grandpa and Grandma to the track on Saturday night. Isaac did great... again. He won the 50cc 7-8 year old class, took 2nd in the 50cc Open class (what a show) and got 6th in the 65cc 7-9 year old class. He kept nailing the double he started jumping last week, he is getting smooth on it. And on his last lap of the night he nailed another double to a table top. We were all cheering. This picture is after we washed the bikes and got most everything pack into the trailer. He is packing his hardware. The smaller one in his left hand is a 'Holeshot Award' for taking the holeshot in the first moto. He got the plaque, a new set of Scott grips and a key chain. Pretty cool bonus.

I have a ton to post, I just gotta take the time. Stay tuned.

Visitors, Visitors

We have lots of visitors in town.

Danica (Amy's cousin) is in town to help us with the kids and have a vacation of her own. She is loving sleeping in, afternoons by the pool and not having to worry about when to goto work next. One of our neighbors told her, "Enjoy your time here, it's like living at a resort." He's right.

My Dad and Penny got here yesterday to get away themselves. We picked them up at the airport last night about 10pm. It will be nice to show them the area and see them for a few days. We are going to drag the whole crew down the Beckley tomorrow the pick up Amy from class and take everybody through the Exhibition Mine.

After we dropped off Dad and Penny at their hotel we saw fireworks being launched from the Appalachian Power Park. We rushed over the to catch them before they were over. What a nice display. It when on for a good 15 min. I snapped some poor pics of the kids with the fireworks behind them. It was a good time.

Later.

More Racing...

Saturday was the first points race at the Tyler Mountain track. They are doing a four race series. Isaac did pretty good. He got a second and a third in the 50cc classes and a 5th in the 65 class. The big news of the night is after some talking, I told him he could try a double jump. (OK for the non-motocross lingo people, that is jumping off of one jump and landing on the next jump.) We talked through which one would be best to try and that he had to commit all the way. He did great. He came up a bit short a few times but by the end of the night he was clearing it. Good Job Isaac...!

Here are some pics from the night and a little video at the end.

Play Ball... or Dance...

We have been trying to stay out of the house in the evenings so Momma can study. Having the kids home in the day has cut into her study time. So, we when to the baseball game. Charleston has a pro team, the Appalachian Power. They are a minor league team for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It's always fun to go to the game and "Kids Eat Free Night" made it even better. We had a blast. Burgers, cotton candy, peanuts in the shell, etc. Lexy and I sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch. We had killer seat, front row against the backstop looking down the first base line. There was a freestyle dance group there performing, so they had a kids dance off during the 4th inning. Isaac and Lexy signed up and kicked butt. Isaac even had the instructor from the dance group invite him to come join their crew. He wants to, we'll see about adding dance lessons to the mix. (shrug) It already seems like we do it all.

Anyway, here is the video from the dancing on the dugout.

Honor Roll

So.. Aahhh... I'm not sure where he got it because Amy and I were neither one great students. But after a week and a half of being out of school, Amy found a whole pile of papers that Isaac brought home. He had a couple of Honor Roll certificates, and spelling award, and this straight A's report card. The stinker did show us all that, he was too excited to be out of school...

Great Job Isaac...!

Shots from the Track

Here are a few quick pics from the track last Saturday... I loaded up small images to save space, just click on any of them the get a larger verision if you want to see them better. Enjoy. It's amazing how hot you get riding... The poor kid gets all red in the face, like his dad.

This is a shot of Isaac waiting to go to the starting gate.

Lexy brought a mega-phone because she wanted Isaac to be able to hear her better.

This is Isaac taking FIRST place in one of his motos.

Isaac invited the missionaries to come see him race. They were super excited Elder Dedrickson and Elder Downard both are from Utah and both ride back home. One of them told Amy that he was more excited about coming to the race that he was about going home. It was fun to have them there and see all the strange looks from the other people. They even enjoied the hotdogs that Amy grilled them for dinner.

Petting Zoo

Amy took the kids to the mobile petting zoo today. She has been sacrificing study time to make sure the kids do some learning and some fun in the days now that they are out of school. There were some fun animals.Isaac tote-in' a chicken.Lexy scoping out which animal to attack next. What the heck is that thing...?

They loved it... Thanks Amy...!

Trophy Room...

Isaac had another great night racing on Saturday at Tyler Mountain MX. The track was a bit muddy in spots, he went down hard in the whoops during practice. But, he jumped right back up, kicked over the bike and took off. (Now, for those of you who don't know, that does it for me. To see him jump back up and keep going when things are hard, that's why I like to take him there. I hope it builds character.) When race time came around he got (4) holeshots on his 50cc. He was 1st in the 50cc 7-8 year old class, 2nd in the 50cc open and 2nd in the 65cc 7-9 year old class. Great job Isaac. I haven't unloaded the camera from Saturday night yet. But, he and I took a few minutes to snap some cell phone pics of his new trophies in his trophy room, under his bed.

Another 1st place.A sweet 2nd place plaque.Isaac in his trophy room, with the goods.

Notice all the one's in the front are 1st place.

Oh yeah, and I owe the kid $40 for holeshots. He and I are in negotiations on the future amount for holeshot bonus cash. I can't afford $40 on top of all the race fees, gas, food, gear, bikes, etc.

Stay tuned for the action shots.

Go #75...!

One Miiill-yawn Dollars...

The kids and I tried to give Amy some time to study on Saturday. We ended up in a toy store call Kid Country Toys. We have been to the one in the Charleston Mall, it was neat, but not as cool as the original location in the south hills. Fun stuff, not one video game in sight. They had some huge stuffed animals, science kits, hula hoops, board games, John Deere bikes, Legos, swing sets, 6 foot grabber arms, costumes, princess hats, boxing gloves, and on and on. On the way out Isaac found a stack of $1,000,000 bills. We tried to buy one but the nice lady just gave it to him.

We'll be back up there...

Stampin' Up...

Here is my version of Stampin' Up... I just got the actual stamps for West Virginia and Kentucky. It's kinda nice to have them. I feel a little more worth what they pay me now that I can stamp a plan in these states.

Now, if I can just get Ohio to finish processing my license there, I'll be set.

Little Adventure at Kanawha State Forest

We went for a little adventure to the Kanawha State Forest on Sunday afternoon. As the crow flies it's about 2 miles. But it takes a half hour to drive there. Nice place. They have trails for biking and hiking, a shooting range, several big (200-300 people) picnic areas, tons of swings and slides, a pool, campsites, hunting, etc. (Sorry Jason, I don't think there are any rappels in this one.)

We when to ride our bikes on the trails, well we must have picked the wrong beginner trail. We spent a third of the time walking our bikes because of washed out trial, trail too steep, big ol' roots across the trail, etc. I still had a good time, it was nice to get out there and see something new. Here's a few pics.

They love the fallen tree bridges...

I alway love to get Lext to strike a pose for me.

Amy hates it when I do that... But, she's HOT. Look at her in that nice workout outfit.

Lexy will even strike a pose for Amy. They took this one when Isaac and I were exploring the Snipe Trial. There were nice placques explaining how the CCC campers used to send the 'rookies' Snipe hunting up this trial.

New Basketball Hoop...

We bought a new basketball standard for the kids to play on this summer. That thing came with more parts than most cars. It took me two solid hours to put it together. But, the kids love it. Isaac plays out there quite a bit. I tried to buy a pink ball for Lexy, but Isaac claimed it as his own. So, I bought another one. The rubber balls don't cost too much ($10), and we can play Dynamite, or Blitz, or Tornado, or HotShot, or whatever you grew up calling that game. See there, Lexy knows how many point you get with a basket. She has made several shots herself on this 7.5 foot rim... but, she forgot how.

He is an outside kid in the first place... This gives him another great reason to be out there.

This hoop is adjustable, Isaac and operate the ratchet adjustment and move the hoop from 7.5 feet to 10 feet and back again. I think there are two or three other heights it stops at in between.

Here is Isaac and his killer outside shot. He can beat me at P-I-G, with this shot... sometimes. He sure doesn't like when I dunk on the 7.5 footer when we are playing P-I-G, "No fair Dad, you know I can't do that..!"

Really...?

Nobody wanted to say congratulations to Lexy for her Kindergarten Graduation? Or tell her her hair was cute? Or her dress was pretty?

Dad Ruined Scouts... Again...

We when to Cub Scouts last night... I have to retract my statement from last week because we took the boys (and Lexy) to Gander Mountain for a tour. Gander Mountain is this area's Sportsman's Warehouse, except we have those here too, we saw one in Lexington. I digress. So, the manager of the store took us to the FREE conference room, handed out FREE hats to everyone there and off we went to look at the camping gear.

It was a pretty good tour, they asked the boys questions and talked about how to start a camp fire, why there are so many different sleeping bags, where to canoe in the state and why you would want a longer canoe vs a shorter one, etc. They we hid the hunting area (although we avoided the gun section). The boys all had fun climbing in and out of the turkey blinds.

We stopped by the archery counter, pretty cool stuff. He got down a kids compound bow and passed it around for the kids to look at. This bow shoots arrows at 200 feet per second. Holy crap. It has all the same components as a deluxe big man bow, just smaller. And it comes in pink camo. The boys all wanted to shoot it... of course. Turns out, they have an indoor range. He took us back and let the boys... watch him shoot the bow. That was a better option for this bunch. Pretty cool.

The manager told me on the side that they had just held the National ADA Shooting Sports Championship in that building. He said it was amazing to watch these people drive in in electric wheel chairs, have someone load there pellet gun and then shoot it with there mouth. Sounds cool. Again, I digress.

At the end of the tour they sat the boys down in the conference room again, gave their commercial ("Bring your dad back and buy stuff"), then asked the boys questions about fishing and such with the winner getting a giant stuffed Rainbow Trout. These is where I ruined it, again. Lexy was so set on answering questions, but I wouldn't let her, we where there for the boys, the scouts. After a real hard question that stumped the boys I whispered the answer to her, she raised her had and answered the question. "You win", the guy says.

"No you don't", says the mean Dad, and I scooped her up and out of the room we when. She was crying and one of the boy needed to win. She and I talked about it and she was still super upset. So, I grabbed one of the giant stuffed fish and we marched up to pay for it. I just about had it done where here came another manager with a second stuffed fish for Lexy. I told the girl at the desk, "I know that is your boss, but I don't care. Put my money in the drawer." He won and Lexy got a FREE giant Rainbow Trout. One of the boy still won the other one. But, in several of the boys eyes Lexy and I ruined the game. Sorry everybody.
So, here are the pics of Lexy and her new toy... And I figured I better buys something after all that and she needed a new folding camp chair anyway ($8, not bad).

Once we got home Isaac ran upstairs and grabbed the big ole Bass that Rick Rosenberg gave me when I was in the hospital a few years ago so that he had a giant fish to snuggle with for bed time too. It all turned out OK in the end.