Saturday - great day for the eldest boy

Yesterday was a great day for the older boy.  We had the Last Race, a crit that was almost a road race but was sort of a crit.  OK, see, a road race is out on the road.  You might go from point A to point B, or you might ride a circuit one or several times, but usually it's at least ten miles.  Maybe seven, but that's pushing it.  On the other side you have a crit race, where you have a short circuit, from one kilometer to maybe mile and change.  This course, out near Decatur, was two and a half miles.  We ran it as a crit, but we had a follow vehicle like a road race.  On top of it being the coldest day since last winter, there was a north wind of about thirty miles per hour.  It added up to feeling AMAZINGLY cold.  On the observation tower, I had to lean into the wind to keep myself from being blown over.  Joseph raced with the adults for one race and with the juniors for another.  He got 20th out of 23 finishers in the adult race and 6th out of 11 in the junior one.  Not bad at all.  Since I was officiating, we had to be there early.  It's about an hour's drive, we had to be there an hour early, and the first race was at 7, so I was dragging the kids up at 4 am.  Did I mention that Emily decided that she wanted to come?  She ended up sitting in the snack bar the whole time while we were freezing out on the track.  Afterwards, we're a few miles down the road when I get a call, Joseph left something.  So back we go.  Then we went into town and ate lunch.  After leaving there, Joseph can't find his sunglasses, so we go back to the restaurant.  It turns out they were in the van the whole time. The races ended at 12:15 and we didn't get home until three.  Then we ran over to Irving to check out the last leftovers from another bike team.  They were selling off some of their used equipment.  Joseph picked up a nice saddle for $30 (used, but new it's $150 - $200) and I got a really nice helmet for $30 (not used, still in the box, and worth $150 new).  As we were leaving, Joseph leans back in his seat with his eyes half-closed in the lazy afternoon sun and mentions, "this is probably the best day ever."  Nice.  Glad I could help offer that to you.  I encouraged him to find out what would be the best day ever for each of his siblings and try to help those days happen.