Memorial Weekend 2009 in Indy, and Happy Anniversary

After running a marathon last Saturday, putting on a concert last Tuesday, driving kids to all of their different activities, including rehearsals, recording sessions, preschool graduations, and a karate belt test and preparing to skip town last week, by Thursday, I was still in hyper-drive.

Wednesday night, I spent a tearful evening witnessing my brother, Spencer, as he was set apart as an Elder, then said goodbye to him with the family.

Thursday morning, I sent KJ off to school, then took TJ to his preschool graduation. He was so stinkin' cute, hammin' it up the whole time. I'll post pictures as soon as I get my disposable camera developed. Then home, to pack, clean up, and get everything ready. Then back to preschool for Peter's preschool program (I get why they were at different times---they are in different classes, but it sure was inconvenient an hour before I had to leave for the airport.) She was sheepish in front of all those people, but warmed up at the end. And also so cute! From there, we checked KJ out of school early, and drove straight to Grandma's house, where I dropped off the kids to stay for the weekend.

Once I got on the plane, and settled in my seat between Neck-brace guy, and Dr. Chang, I thought of my brother, who was surely, by now, flying somewhere over the ocean, on his way to the United Kingdom, to fulfill his 2 years of service to the Church.

At my layover in Detroit, I discovered there is such a thing as a perma-flushing toilet, which only flushes when you sit down to go, and won't stop during the "business" but will stop once you stand up, and refuse to flush again.

I finally landed in Indianapolis and took at Taxi to my hotel around 10:30 PM eastern.

Alright, that's the boring part of the story. Feel free to skim.

Friday morning we woke up expecting to catch a bus to the Bryant factory. We got up and dressed only to discover that our tour was scheduled at 1:00 pm. So, we spent some downtime, sitting in the hotel lobby trying to decide what to do, and finally settled on reading a book in the room until lunch.

The Bryant factory was pretty cool, despite our tour guide who admittedly didn't know what the hell he was talking about, who actually worked in scheduling or something. I tried really hard not to get distracted by his moobs as he droned on about this machine or that. Actually, to see the ins and outs of how a furnace was actually made was pretty cool and interesting. Our tour guide just kind of sucked. I felt like a celebrity as we entered the building the entire faculty lined the entrance and hallway, applauding our arrival. Made us feel pretty special.

Here's C in his sexy safety goggles. I'm sure he appreciates me posting this picture. Unfortunately this is the only picture I took of the factory.

(As you can see, my camera seems to be working just fine now. I'm so relieved)

Friday night we had a little welcome dinner. Guess who showed up for that?

Do you know who that is? No?


That's Tony Kanaan. The driver of the Indy car that Bryant sponsors. And he came to have dinner with us. (That other dude works for Bryant). How cool is that? He even took a picture of us and tweeted it. I felt special (even though you can't see me at all in his picture) I was hoping to get my pic with him and his autograph, but unfortunately he had to leave early and I didn't get it.



That night we also got to have our picture taken with the official race car,

I think this pic looks like a high school dance picture. I felt like were at Morp or something.

This is C & Me, and C's best friend Troy, and his wife Melissa. Troy works for C.

and we also had our caricatures drawn:



What do you think? I really appreciate that the artist chose to point out the giant zit on my chin that I'd been sporting all weekend.



This artist was a little nicer, I think. And he reminded me of Bobby from the Brady Bunch. I think it was him. Seriously.

It makes C look like Luke Wilson. Something about the eyebrows.

After dinner they had a 50's bop dance, because they were celebrating 50 years of Bryant sponsoring Indy racing. We didn't dress up, but here are some pics.


Saturday, we got to go to the track, and go in the pits with the crews. They had pit crews there practicing for the big day. It was kind of fun to watch them do it over and over. Here's a video. I paid attention to the time. 15 seconds. Better keep practicing!


Here are some pics from Saturday's events. We walked around, got lots of free stuff, and checked out the Indy racing Hall of Fame museum. There were lots of cars in there. Who'da thought?

Bumblebee. How cool is that? I took this pic for TJ. I was hoping to see a Mustang, but this particular display of sports cars was sponsored by Chevy.

Here a giant statue. What is Troy doing under there? And what am I pointing at? Hanging out with these guys all weekend brings out the worst in me....

The next Danica Patrick? p.s. this is actually Danica's car. I think from last year or something

This little beauty is called the "Mormon Meteor" because it's speed was tested in the Utah Salt Flats.

Did you know that the first female Indy car race driver to drive in the Indy 500 in 1956 (I think) was sponsored by Bryant? Yeah, that's pretty freakin' awesome.

On the way back from the track, Troy sweet talked our bus driver into dropping us off at the Lucas Oil Stadium. That's the new field where the Indianapolis Colts play. So, we took a tour.

It was pretty cool, but I'll admit, it would've been cooler to watch an actual game.

Yes, this is their carpet. Kind of cool.

C in the locker room.


Me on the field.

I'll post about the race later. As of right now, I've been writing/posting pictures all morning, and I've got to get my laundry done and house clean.

And I should probably take a shower because today is the 9th Anniversary of my and C's wedding? (Annette, what is the proper way to say that? Plural possessive? I've always wondered)

Yeah, so tonight when C gets home from work we'll be celebrating our 9 year anniversary.

Boom Chicka Wow Wow!