October Fun

The kids had their school fall festival on Saturday. We had a great time. Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of pictures because I had to work at a booth so Travis was with all 3 kiddos. :)

Here's Mika and I at the Go Fish Booth

Taking a break from candy and fun, to eat!

Fox loves sitting on our clean laundry while I'm folding it.

 Blue-eyed crazies :)

 Brandon and Travis always come up with the most inventive games. Here they are pushing the punching bag into each other and see how far it pushes them back. Who ever is the closest to the bag, wins.

 But apparently that wasn't enough fun, so they would stay with their eyes closed and both of them would fly to the ground holding their stomach or chest. Fun game eh?

Kaylin has recently discovered her beautiful voice mixed with her knowledge of reading, she loves to sing new songs. This time her and her friend made up a song, and she's singing it to me. It was a spooky Halloween song :)

Mika is always interested in dressing herself. She'll insist on no pants or her jacket zipped all the way up, you get the idea... She also loves wearing backpacks. But those together and this is what you get.

Never a dull moment at the Clarkes!

Carving and Cutting

Ethan really was excited to cut his pumpkin, although I had to force him to smile and this is what I got. He was concentrating so hard on doing it by himself. Unfortunately those flimsy orange cutters don't work so well. But he just wanted a typical jack-o-lantern face, so he drew it out and I helped him cut it. He pulled all the guts out by himself tho! A task Kaylin was not happy to do!

Miss Mika has to be undressed at most things that occur at the table. She's one messy little thing. Travis cut her a baby face on her pumpkin. 

Every year Travis' pumpkin ends up being the last carved on Family Night. He prefers A LOT of time to carve his Maori mask. So here are all the carved pumpkins. We tried making faces like our pumpkins...

 Happy Halloween!

The "Compound"

So Travis entered to a win a 2 day stay in Charlotte NC to meet Michael Waltrip (who is retired) and Martin Truex Jr (who races now--the car behind us) and get a chance to drive a NASCAR. It was actually through NAPA, which their shop is a NAPA auto care center. We don't know a thing about NASCAR, but now we do and it is very interesting and pretty amazing. The first day we went to the Michael Waltrip Compound which is a museum with a shop in the back. Travis walked around in awe. It was pretty cool. 

 They gave us a chance, after we watched the pit crew change all 4 tires and fill up the gas tank in 12 seconds, to try ourselves. Here is Travis trying to push the car up with a jack. It was pretty funny.

 He also changed a tire in 15 seconds! :) 

 This is our favorite guy of the pit crew. He manned the gas tank. He was so informative and kept explaining everything to Travis. He even filled some of the tank up to let Travis try.

 Standing outside their transporting semi-truck. The cars go on top of all the gear and carts. In the front is a huge sofa, tvs and computers.

 In the shop. Behind it is where we ate dinner with the famous guys and the pit crew. We are anxious to watch a race now and watch the pit crew in action! They were so awesome!!

Charlotte Motor Speedway

So part of the sweepstakes was the ride-a-long and also DRIVE an actual NASCAR. It's called the Richard Petty Experience. They call him "the King". 

After a catered lunch, we got our fireproof uniforms on. They were hard to get on! --and not very attractive ;)

Taking pics by THE car :)

Travis at the track...sooo excited.

Travis getting in the ride-a-long car--they go about 170mph and you are strapped in so tight you can hardly breathe! 

Travis after the ride-a-long. He was pretty much shaking from the rush...

Alright now it's my turn...I was so nervous I thought I was going to throw up!

 After my ride-a-long...I was shaking! And not feeling so hot. ;) The car pulls your body to the left and down and you are fighting to not go that way. My muscles were so tired!

Travis getting in to DRIVE!! You drive ALONE, just following a guy who turns on lights for you to speed up or slow down...they gave us about an hr long instruction before.

 Travis driving off...

Travis going about 138 mph!!

The guys are trying to talk me into driving. Mind you, NONE of the 8 wives that were there didn't drive!!

I finally decided to go. My guy was awesome--trying to remind me of all the instructions and keeping my nerves calm.

I couldn't help it, I screamed while driving away. You had to tally rev it before you release the clutch.

Driving away!

Here I am going 117mph! I was the slowest one :(

 Getting that dreadful heavy uniform off was heaven, I was totally sweating!

 Me and Travis by my car :) 

 It was a once in a lifetime experience. We met some super nice and funny people from all over the country. Such fun memories. I'll never forget it. I'm so glad I drove and I talked 3 other wives into to doing it too!

Kaylin + Hives

Kaylin had an interesting weekend. Thursday night a bottle of spray bleach was left on our bathroom counter. She decided to clean the mirror with it and because it smelled so bad, she'd spray Glade on top of that, all over the bathroom. The next day she woke up with 2 spots on her face. She went to school. The teacher noticed this and then noticed as well that there were about 20 spots by lunchtime and sent her to the nurse. I told her what had happened the night before and was sure this was the cause. After researching hives, we figured it was a fragrance reaction, figuring the bleach would have burned her instead of just itched. 

We had a full day of fun planned Saturday so we got her a hat and went on our way. She was such a trooper. We had her come to church too, thinking all was fine, but by the 3rd hour her eye started swelling so I took her home.

Unfortunately they didn't go away with all my oatmeal bath, benedryl and topical treatments, so we had to take her into the Dr on Monday. She has to take some steroids for 5 days. :( The Dr thought it was a fragrance reaction and also Poison Ivy. Poor thing.
She's back to school today and I hope no one was mean about her spots, at least they are swelling anymore!

Picking Pumpkins!

The kids love picking out their own pumpkins. Ethan wanted a really big one with a long strait stem, Kaylin wanted a clean perfect shaped one and Mika a small dirty one. :)

 Handsome little smile...

 This was the day of Kaylin's hives at their worst, but she was a trooper. Mika loves her big sister and followed her all around the patch.