Adventures at Uncle Ben's

One of the places that the kids were most excited to visit was Uncle Ben's. We were able to visit Uncle Ben a couple of years ago and they had not forgotten riding his dirt bikes, and were hoping for more of the same.

I was excited to visit Ben and his awesome wife Jenny because they're so much fun to hang out with!

I think the only person not happy about the situation was Cole, their baby.

He must be an introvert--he was stressed by the party going on around him. (Don't get me wrong--I am married to an introvert & I love him!)

Our day at Ben's turned into a real family party. My sister Laila came with her kids,

And then my brother Grant (Ben's twin) showed up with two of his girls.

As you can see, Ben's baby does a little better with Grant than with the rest of us. Probably something about Ben & Grant looking just alike...


Here are Laila's boys (Lilly was off playing dress-up, of course!) on Grant's motorcycle.

Here is Grant's daughter Lizzie, who seems to have inherited our maternal grandfather's bright red hair.

And here is baby Scarlett, who is my favorite because she just let me hold her forever, and she even fell asleep while I was holding her.

Jared was very excited to ride the motorbikes with Uncle Ben even though he isn't old enough to ride himself.

Josh was so excited to ride. The way things worked out he got to ride a lot more than we had expected, and he was very happy with that. I think he probably ended up riding all together for more than 3 hours over two days. He enjoyed it all except for when he ran out of gas and thought he'd broken the bike and had to walk it all the way back to the house.

What I really wish I had a picture of was what Josh's hair looked like every time he took off the helmet--all nappy and sticking up in every direction. But he wouldn't let me take a picture.

Jason, though, had the biggest (and worst) adventure.

I didn't get pictures of the boys when they were leaving for their first rides, and I of course wanted some. So when I heard a motorcycle in the distance I dropped what I was doing inside (sewing with Jenny) and hurried out to the garage to take this picture.

I was making sure I had gotten a good shot when Jason said, "Mom, I'm really in pain here."

That of course shocked me--he had seemed just fine, not that you can tell a lot when you can only see someone's eyes through a helmet.

As the story came out later, he had gone up a little hill too fast thinking that he would then go down the hill fast too. Instead, the little hill had launched him into the air 10 feet above the ground, and he had fallen with the bike on top of him. Josh had seen him and had gone to get help, but then had mistakenly thought Ben was on his way out to help Jason and so he turned around and went back to play.

Jason eventually realized that no one was coming, got the bike up, and rode carefully back to the house. We spent quite a while washing the dust, dirt, and gravel out of numerous deep abrasions on his right arm, abdomen, and leg. He had thought that his right leg was probably broken, but it turned out to be sprained instead. He was quite a mess.

Lucky for him I had a big tube of lidocaine that was for a wart I'd just had burned on my foot. I put lots of neosporin and lidocaine on everything and covered it with gauze and medical tape. Later Ben went out and bought some new age bandages--the kind that can stay on for 4-7 days and prevent scarring, and we started changing the gauze for those instead. I spent quite a bit of time in the next 48 hours visiting various Walgreens, Walmarts, and even a medical supply store in search of more of those type of bandages. I think that counting the almost $30 brace for his ankle that I also bought, I probably spent at least $80 on medical supplies for him. (Russ pointed out that it was still cheaper and quicker than the ER would have been!)

Jason was pretty shaken by the whole thing, and I hope he really learns a lesson from this. We were both worried because this happened on Friday afternoon and on Monday afternoon he was supposed to go to OYA--Outdoor Youth Adventures--a 4 day outdoor program in Idaho where he would go river rafting, rock climbing, horseback riding, and have a pioneer trek. I think we both spent a lot of time praying that he would be strong enough by then to go and have fun. Thankfully he was and he did have a great time at OYA. And hopefully that's the last time he is that reckless.

(The bandages are amazing. When he took them off 5 days later there was new skin almost everywhere and I think there will be very little scarring)