Our Race Car(l) Driver

For Christmas this past year, the boys and I gave Carl what we called the Lightening McQueen Experience.

OK, its officially called the Andretti Racing Experience, but the boys don't really know who Mario Andretti is, and they do know "Kachow."

Plus, it was fun to wrap up a little CARS toy as the "gift" since kids don't really undedrstand printed-out gift certificates.

They only do this experience at the Texas Motor Speedway every few months, since they travel around the country to different spots.

So its taken us awhile to find a weekend that worked for us.

Which is how we got to celebrate Christmas in July.

Carl had a great time.

The boys really enjoyed the whole process and cheering Daddy on.

Even if it did take WAY longer than I had anticpated.

We were there for four hours.

 From 6pm -10pm.

 We weren't sure Carl would ever get his turn.

 No, its not a problem with your screen.

The lighting really did change from daylight to dark by the time Carl's turn arrived.

I think I got some pretty decent pictures.

Especially considering its not exactly easy to photograph someone going 135 MPH.

And its hard to tell when its Carl coming around the track, versus another driver.

He was pretty thrilled with the experience when it was all over.

As were these little troopers.

They never complained, not even once. But Alex did say he didn't want the second dinner we had been planning (we'd gotten them a light dinner before going to the track, and had been planning a second one for around 8pm when I thought we would be done). They just wanted to go to sleep in the hotel.