whobody won the race? (in opposite world)

Well...looking through my pictures I realized that I never finished with my posts about the fair....so here is one more part of our fair adventure.

The first night of the fair they have dirt bike races.  We just watched maybe 30 minutes of racing (standing here with Lola's friend Eva) and then they took a break. 

THAT was when the kids' favorite part of the whole fair took place....

THE RACE.

That's right....they had a running race on the dirt bike track. Keep in mind that we really didnt' know what was going on. The guy on the mic was standing right in front of us...but we had no speakers there...all we heard was something about kids and race....so we sent the older 2 out....and held Nash back. :)  As we were holding our son (who was struggling like a fish out of water) we noticed about 5 kids run into the track that were clearly younger than Nash....so we thought....why not?  Both Jason and I were thinking that they would just be running a short race out there...

Nope- as usual we turned out to be "those parents"...the ones who send their kids that are too little to do something too big. :) It wasn't THAT bad...but lets just say, everyone cheered when Nash FINALLY crossed the finish line....

we had random people stop and tell us how cute our little boy was at the race...

and oh, did I mention I had to carry him across the finish line???

You can't see Keaton in this picture...but Lola is in the pink tank top and jean shorts (and flip flops)...and you can barely see Nash...BUT if you look carefully...he is the boy to the right of the pole in the blue shirt carrying the RED BALLOON. Yes, he took his balloon elephant with him to race...he insisted, and we really had no reason to fight him....

 The older 2 kids LOVE to run...so they LOVED this race.  We really couldn't see much from where we were standing...but they crossed the finish line just fine.  When I started to see some little ones cross the finish line I walked out onto the track to try to see where Nash was.... then the guy on the mic said something like "look at this little guy....that is a big smile" and I look over the final 'hill' (the finish line was at the peak of this hill)....

I saw Nash run UP the hill....get just about to the finish line....then he made a QUICK U-TURN....and ran back down the final hill.  Of course on the way down the hill....going the wrong way....he did a face plant....and part of his red balloon elephant, well, it popped.  So...I ran to my kid (again, I love to be "that parent" and it seems to happen a lot....do you like I how say that as if it is something that is beyond my control?)...I got to Nash, assured him that the red on his fingers was not blood...just balloon pieces....and stood him up to finish the race. 

NOW....at this point, not only are all of the other kids done with the race...they are already back at the grandstands with their parents. :) I stood Nash up and brushed him off....I encouraged him to finish the race...BUT the kid had dirt in his shoes (imagine that) and wanted me to empty them out first...

SO I scooped him up and went across the finish line....

Of course, everyone cheered....and I felt terrible mom guilt... I didn't know if Nash was having a blast in the race...or was just running around scared looking for me....

 He was very happy when we got out of the fence...and the only thing that seemed to be upsetting him was the fact that there was dirt in his crocs.  The next morning, I called my friend Nikole (who was also there) to get her 'take' on things.  She reassured me that the reason it probably took Nash so long...was that he was LAUGHING SO HARD the whole time.

She said that from her view, he was having a blast.

Phew.  That made me feel much better... I just LOVE to be "that" parent..... Luckily, he was happy...and didn't seem to be too scarred by the experience.

The picture below is not the most flattering of Nash...but this was right before the race...

with his red balloon!