The Bruce Family: Lemmon Race

This weekend we had a two day race in Lemmon, SD. It was both exciting and scary, but at different times during the weekend. To start off, we left Upton at like 10:00 Friday morning and started to travel. We had to stop in Spearfish to get groceries for the weekend and then we were off again. A little while later Jace says, "Hey Mom, look at me!" I looked back and I see him writing all over his face with his fingers. A while ago he used a permanent marker on one of his trucks to color it black. So while we were in our truck he thought that it would be funny to scratch it off his truck and wipe it on his face. So this is what he looked like after he was finished.

Yeah, just great! I thought for sure it was not going to come off of his face and he was going to look like that all weekend. But, luckily it did. 4 hours later and we finally made it. We set up camp and get the dirt bikes unloaded. We make dinner and go to bed. So night one was pretty uneventful. Except for the fact that I could hardly breathe because of the awful cold I had, well still have. But other than that it was good. The next day we wake up early. Practice starts at 7:00am and they have to put on their gear and get ready to go. Practice was good. Both the boys were hauling butt. Brayden was doing a huge jump that no one else was doing. It was scary and exciting both!

So then after practice the motos started. Brayden ended up getting 2nd overall in the Pee Wee 4-6 class and 4th in the Pee Wee open class. Bare in mind that Brayden is still only 5. He is the youngest person in the Pee Wee Open class. He kicked butt. Jace did great in the 65 class. He ended up 6th overall in that class and 5th overall in the Pee Wee Open Class. Yes, Brayden beat Jace in the overall. I was not looking forward to this day, but you know what? It was fine! Jace didn't seem to mind and he was very happy for Brayden. Jace wasn't doing the big jump that Brayden was doing and that was one of the reasons why Brayden stayed ahead of him. On this day only one other boy was doing this jump. Jace was doing this jump on his 65.

So we get done with the races and start dinner and relax. We are all sitting outside with all of our friends and watching all our kids ride their bicycles and do tricks.

It was great. The weather was gorgeous. All of the stars were out and there was not a cloud in the sky. Brett decides that we better put down our awning because it was a little breezy out and he did not want to get up in the middle of the night if the wind picked up. We ended up leaving out pop up tent up and not worrying about that. We go to bed and everything is good. The boys are so tired that they pretty much fell right to sleep when they climbed into bed. I, on the other hand, struggled to fall asleep. I still couldn't hardly breathe! But I finally fell asleep. Unfortunately, my sleep didn't last long. Brett and I were wakened by the nastiest wind ever. It was horrible! I hated every minute of it! I thought for sure there was going to be a tornado and our camper was going to get lifted up into the sky and smashed down to the ground! The wind was a horizontal wind and the rain was just coming down! We were watching the lightning out or window and then our pop up tent got torn to pieces and only a corner of it was on the frame. The tarp was smacking our pick up so Brett had to brave the storm and go outside to cut it off the rest of the way so it didn't scratch our pick up. So Brett and his dad did that. We got a phone call at 2 in the morning from our friends Todd and Robin Seeley saying they were all in their pick up listening to their weather radio. They went out their after they heard to tornado sirens going off. Brett and I were debating on whether or not to wake up Bridger and Brayden and go out there too. Jace was awake and he was not liking it one bit! I had to go and lay with him and we prayed. The storm would calm down and then get worse. We ad a few breaks where we thought that the storm was over and Jace fell back to sleep. Then the storm would pick up again. It was awful! I think the storm lasted for a good 1-2 hours or more! Brett and I finally fell asleep and when we got up I went outside to check things out. What a sight! I wish that I would have taken a picture of our camp after the storm. Garbage was everywhere! Everyone who didn't take down their pop up tent came outside and found out that they had no pop up tent. The people that were sleeping in tents ended up sleeping in their enclosed trailers. I thought for sure that we were going to have a tent in our camp, but we didn't. I walked over to the track and there was standing water everywhere. The tractors were out there trying to get most of the water off the track so we could start practicing. I think we ended up starting practice a little later than usual, but it was fine. No one minded.