Weekend Race Warriors

This is Kurt and I with our friends Tim and Angel on the track at Watkin's Glen. After the race on Sunday we got to walk the track back to our campsite. It was so cool the track was covered in pieces of rubber from the tires. We're hoping that the pieces we picked up are off of Dale Jr's car.
This is the view from the straight away before the cars head up through what they call the Esses. This hill doesn't look that steep but it was quite a walk but well worth it.
Saturday afternoon after the Nationwide race we walked over the track and up the hill near where all the race car haulers are parked and we got to see Boris Said up close and personal. Angel was brave enough to ask him for a hug and she got to hug him. It was the highlight of her weekend, that's all she talked about. Too bad I wasn't thinking fast enough I could have gotten a picture with him. Oh well, live and learn.
This is the view from our seats, we sat right across from the exit at pit road. We had a good view of the cars coming back out onto the track. In the background you can see Jr's car leaving pit road. Jr started out strong and lead laps on 2 separate occasions. Unfortunately he had a few problems with his car and ended up finishing around 20th or so. We had a great weekend, despite the rain and the fact that our tent flooded Saturday night. Luckily our friends Shane and Jackie had their camper their and let us crash in the camper. It was close quarters but tons of fun. Hopefully Kurt and I will actually be home for a while now.

Camping at Nick's Lake

On Friday night, August 1st, Kurt and I got out of work, packed up the car and headed up to Nick's Lake in Old Forge to spend the weekend camping with Kurt's mom and dad and the triplets, Laura, Rachel and Rebecca.
Kurt's mom said that it had rained off and on pretty much all week while they had been up there. Later Saturday afternoon it started raining again and we had to put up "tarp city" to protect the tent. The tarps protected our tent and added something "special" to the camp site.
Saturday night Kurt's mom and dad took us all out to dinner and we went for a short ride afterwards, we stopped in this parking lot and made friends with the deer having supper there. The girls had picked crab apples at home and brought them up. I feed these two little deer apples right out of my hand. Later we went up this other rode and Kurt fed a momma deer with twin fawns apples out his hand too. It was so cool!!! They weren't afraid at all.
Saturday morning after we ate breakfast, we went out on the canoe, Kurt tried his hand at fishing and after several attempts, he finally caught a small trout. Kurt said it was only "fish stick' size so he let him go.
We took a break from fishing and rowed back into this cove in the lake and it turned into a small stream. We beached the canoe up on some rocks and walked through the water over the bridge. It was a beautiful view. We had such a great time camping with Kurt's parents, I can't wait for next summer so go back.

Our Honeymoon

On our way to Florida we decided we needed a "mini" vacation on our way down to break up the trip. Kurt's sister Jen was a sweetheart and made a reservation for us in Myrtle Beach. We spent 2 nights there and this was the beautiful view from our hotel room. We had such a nice view of the beach. Our last night there we took a walk on the beach and saw this jellyfish washed up on the beach. I'm glad this guy waited until night to make his way to the beach. I wouldn' t have wanted to run into him while swimming in the ocean. Ouch!!

The highlight of our honeymoon was the Nascar race at Daytona. On Saturday afternoon we went into the area called FAn Zone, which gets you up close to the pit area and the drivers. Saturday was the last inspection of the cars before the race, this is Dale Jr's car going through inspection. It was so awesome to be that close to the cars. It was just unreal, usually we just see them on tv, so this was an amazing experience.
Before the race Saturday night Kurt and I were sitting in our seats watching all the people down there on the track listening to the band "Lady Antebellum" and decided that we should be there too. We walked down the steel stairs (in the back there) and got to walk on the track at Daytona!!!! The track is so steep that you have lean forward to walk up the track. We also got to sign our names on the start-finish line. This was really just the coolest thing that we got to do during our vacation.
From the track we made our way over to pit road were the cars were lined up to start the race. This is Dale Jr's actual car that he raced that night sitting on pit road waiting for the race to start.

Wedding, Honeymoon, & the whole Crazy thing

Well with a mixture of relief and sadness the wedding is over. Despite the minor problems that occurred the day of, it was a beautiful wedding. Of course right when my bridesmaids and I got ready to leave for the church it was absolutely pouring rain, but we made it after receiving an umbrella escort to the tahoe. But no sooner had we entered the church then the power went out. Our ceremony was held by candlelight and our closest family and friends were nice enough to sing and provide us with some pre-entrence music. With the wedding over we were greeted with sun, heat and humidity. Emmanuel Vaucher was our photographer had us travel in our limo to Forest Park for some very beautiful and unique pictures, which can be viewed if you visit the website were are pictures are posted. http://emanphoto.photostockplus.com/event_198708. If anyone knows someone who is getting married you should choose Eman as your photographer, you will not be disappointed. Anyways while we were having fun in Forest Park and unbeknownst to me we almost did not have a reception because of the power being out. But God smiled on us that day and the power returned and we were able to have on heck of a party at Katie & Karl's. After such a great party Kurt and I decided we needed a little R&R and we left on Tuesday for our honeymoon. Pictures of that will soon be posted. We had great time in Florida and hated to return.