Getting Reaquainted

True to my journaling experiences in the past, this effort to chronicle G’s early childhood stalled. As he remains an active child, his fun certainly didn’t stall. Fall and winter held as many memorable events and milestones as last summer, only without as much travel.

I’ll offer a drive-by recap in lieu of trying to catch up post-by-post:

Summer’s End / Fall

We ended last summer with three more CCC dirtbike events—Mio-Hunt Creek, Vintage and the Color Tour. Fresh off his training wheels, G was able to ride his PW around camp at the first two and stretch out a bit on a half-mile loop available onsite at the last event. He also squeezed in some group trail riding near home when Uncles Brad and Curt joined us for Labor Day weekend at the house.

We made daytrips out of Mio-Hunt Creek and Vintage, but camped full out for October’s Color Tour. Eighty degree temps, a special trick bike show and the onsite ½ mile and 4 mile loops for uncertified riders made for a really nice ending to G’s dirtbike season. Even Mom got in on the action, riding Uncle Brad’s pit bike onsite as well. Aside from having to wait for me, G enjoyed our time on the trail together.

There was also one last D-14 enduro in Wolverine. Still in the Buddy class, G rode atop his Dad’s bike and Uncle Brad accompanied them for the family race Saturday. On Sunday, we captured great video of Dad as he completed his best race and finish yet in the adult series.

Summer’s end included our annual trip to Caseville as well. Where, of course, G got even more riding time at Mac’s house. At Uncle Curt’s, we enjoyed the beach and what is becoming a yearly fish fry and guys reunion. G always hates to leave, but enjoys his bonus stop on the way out of Michigan’s thumb, when we stop to watch Uncle Brad race MPX.

Winter

Grandma’s visit at Thanksgiving brought snow that stayed through April. We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with friends as usual, complete with golf cart riding in the snow. Three weeks later, G opted for a sledding party for his birthday celebration. Our new house features two awesome sledding hills and his friends arrived, donned winter gear and headed outside for more than two hours. A few even tried G’s little snowmobile. Kept all of us adults busy and wore the little ones out. Later, inside, the gift opening and cake ceremonies featured red-cheeked, glassy-eyed kids doing their best to stay awake for the remainder of his party. That party set the tone for the rest of the winter—we spent hours and hours and hours downhill sledding. Right through April.

Winter also included a few local snowmobiling trips, on both the modern and vintage sleds. By winter’s end, Dad had G operating the vintage sleds on his own—not solo yet, but I imagine that will come next winter.

Staying on the active/activity theme, G’s Dad resumed teaching him to downhill ski this year. Maybe along about the halfway point, G began going downhill on his own. Loved it. So did we. These were some of the best winter afternoons, enjoying the outdoors and a packed lunch in the warming hut.

Dirtbiking was not completely absent during the snow months. Sundays, after skiing, we looked forward to coming home and watching Supercross on TV. After which, G was wont to go out and build supercross tracks in the snow. Not as much fun as doing in the summer dirt. And somewhere along about February, we started counting the number of sleeps until G’s first enduro race—which was April 26, 2008.

It will be interesting to look back on this blog 10 years from now and see if G is as passionate about dirtbikes as he is now and has been since he could form words. It is certainly the single most prominent theme of his journal thus far.