Ben Boy

Bill and Ben at the IERA 22 banquet. (That's the riding association they belong to for all their racing.) We each collected door prizes, including me ("I" picked out a certificate for one race with no entrance fee. Woo.)

 Ben took 3nd place in the 65cc class. He would like you to know that Mom and Dad said he wasn't racing for points this year and look how well he did, and that he's only a little bitter because he could have possibly gotten first or second place if we had let him race more races. (The second place kid would like to blame his football coach.) 

The trophies were gigantic this year!

Let's compare smiles on my boy. The ones up above? Standard Ben smile. The one below? Cheesy grin smile. He has two others- no smile/mostly grimace and a wide-eyed stare. He has done that one since he was little. I'll have to find some to share with you sometime.

 We took a little family road trip a few weeks ago and the boys were excited because our hotel would have cable and they would get to watch the Supercross race live. Turns out our hotel did have cable but not the Speed channel so they resorted to watching video footage the next morning off of Bill's laptop. Motorcycles have invaded our life permanently.* 

I love his standard smile!

 Next in line is a series of shots taken over four consecutive days. 
Here's the story: Ben comes home from school and I ask him how he's doing to which he replies that his cheek hurts. I take a look at it and notice a goose egg like bump on his cheek. "Did you get punched?", I ask him. No, he didn't get punched or hit it on anything he says. I start searching online for cheek bumps which turn up mumps most readily. I take a picture of his face and send it to nurse Aunt Beth. By now I'm thinking I will have to take him in to get it looked at and if it is mumps or something else he could have to stay overnight. I call my sister to see if she's seen the picture and we start talking about it at which point Ben pipes up that he didn't hit his cheek, he whacked it on something on the playground. He clarifies saying that I asked if it was hit and it wasn't; it was whacked. 

He's lucky there are even anymore pictures of him to show! 

I made him ice it because it was sore and then we watched the progression turn from a little bump to lots of nice colors. 

 I told him to take it easy during recess for the next day or so. He asked if he could just stay home. His reasoning? There is no taking it easy during recess. Go hard or go home is his motto.

 He had to endure a lot of questions over the weekend around basketball games and church. 

 Farkle. Are you a Farkle fan? I've been hearing about this game for a while and decided we should give it shot. Fun. Good problem solving. Easy. Good family night game. Fast. High scoring. We are fans. 
How many points have you gotten in one play? Ben, in our third game, scored 5,600 points in one play!! We are astounded, but then again, that was only our third game ever. Had I been allowed to take a picture he would have been sporting a slightly cheesy smile.

I had to leave and couldn't finish the game. In the morning I asked Luke how he ended up finishing and I think he got third. But he mostly told me that I "DNF"ed. (That's motocross speak for Did Not Finish. *see above)