Olympic Track & Field Trials - June 2012

The second to last weekend in June we were able to go down to Oregon to visit BOTH Sean and I's families! Sean's family was up from SoCal to help his Grandma with her recent move. With Sean's work schedule we were only able to go down for one day (drove down Saturday night and stayed on Sunday) but we made the most of our time there! Sunday, after church (and before Sean's B-day BBQ), Lizzy, Ethan and I went to the UofO campus for the Olympic Track & Field Trials. They have a whole festival outside Hayward Field (that's free to get in) with a big set-up from Nike, food booths, a mini 5-event Olympics for kids, jumbo-trons to watch the action from outside the field, etc. We took Ethan four years ago and had a great time...

 

Track Town 2008

Look at how little he is!!

One of the first things we came across was the mini-Olympics for kids. Ethan can sometimes be very shy about participating in things like that, but he was very excited to try out all the events so that's what we did first! There was a long jump, standing long jump, vertical leap, 40m dash and 40m hurdles. Ethan did them all and had a great time... even if he couldn't run the fastest or jump the highest. They also had a very small track-time obstacle course for just the little kids. Ethan did that, too.

The look on the other kid's face cracks. me. up!! He wanted a "real" race and was less than happy when Ethan took the advice of the people running the event and just ran around the hurdles!! Ethan was just happy to give it a try!

At the start of the 40m dash WITH the starting blocks... even with flip flops that he had to fling off, Ethan won this race hands down!

After all was said and done, Ethan got to show his completed event card for a prize. I don't remember what... something cheesy. But he got a lanyard with a holder for his event card, so he thought that was pretty cool.

The rest of the time we just walked around the rest of the festival...

Took a cheesy cut-out shot....

Got a free Chobani yogurt (any flavor!)....

Admired Ashton Eaton's new world record in the Decathlon....

Watched some of the events on the jumbo-trons and listened to the roar of the crowd at the stadium...

Went through all of the Nike's displays... this light one was pretty cool, as long as you're not prone to seizures! It showed real-time of how fast the runners were going...

Checked out the UofO Track booth and took some pictures next to the giant, golden "O"...

And then Ethan ran around the little track they had on the floor...

Admired the hype they had for the Olympic games being in London...

And had a camera-guy take our picture as we were getting ready to leave...

We were only there a couple hours, but it was fun to feel like we were part of history-in-the-making and I like that Ethan has been to BOTH of the trials in his lifetime.... A tradition I hope to continue.