Monster Jam

Austin is a big fan of Monster Jam. From the moment we showed him that his Grave Digger truck was on tv, he has loved it. We had the opportunity to see it live at the Tacoma Dome with my family just over a week ago. It was a big day for all of us. First of all, we made the mistake of putting Austin in a different room so we could all sleep better. He didn't. He woke up at 3:30 and didn't go down until 5 when I shoved (it didn't fit nicely through the doorways but I was in no mood to break it down. Sorry Mom) his play pen back in the other room and put him to bed and Zach and I moved to the couches in the living room. Two short hours later and I was up again getting ready to hit the road at 8 so we could make it to the Party In The Pits. We debated whether we should go or not since we would all be tired, but we figured what the heck, let's do it.

Turns out we were glad we went. The Tacoma Dome is pretty small so there wasn't much room for the trucks to do anything spectacular, and they had three more shows following ours, so Freestyle (the crashing part) was pretty boring. Plus it was pretty cool to meet some of the famous drivers and get their autographs. Here are some pictures from the pits.

Austin in from of Donkey Kong.

Me with one of my favorite trucks, Batman, and the main (only?) driver, John Seasock was actually in Tacoma. I was so excited, I thanked him profusely for coming. Blathering idiot.

The Amazing Craig Christenson, driver of Donkey Kong. I was surprised to see how many famous drivers were here.

El Toro Loco, one of Austin's favorite trucks. We ended up getting 6 of 9 signatures before Austin was sick of standing in line. Then we went around and took pictures of the other trucks too. They're not quite as big as we were expecting.

Austin made it through to intermission, chowed down pretty good on Grandma's Kettle Corn, then promptly fell asleep and slept most of the way through Freestyle. My arm was actually sore the next day from holding him like this for an hour. We had worried that Austin wouldn't like the ear muffs because he hates hats so much, but once he realized how loud it was, he wouldn't let us take them off, even when it was over, until we were outside the building.

The lack of sleep combined with my pregnancy really wiped me out. At 9 that night I was beyond tired to the point that sounds were louder and I could feel myself getting close to physically snapping. I crawled in to bed and didn't hear a thing til the next morning. It was a quick trip to the west side, but it was awesome to be able to go to Monster Jam live and in person with Austin and my entire family.