Lone Star

I've been working with Travis to take over more things with Aiden and I can already tell it's making a big difference in Aiden's willingness to approach him.  Aiden used to come to me for everything and would throw a fit if Travis did it.  Travis' opinion was 'he doesn't want me, he wants you.'  Yessss.  But I need help!  So I forced him.  Travis was annoyed at first, but now that he's reaping the benefits, I know he appreciates it. 

As an extension of Travis taking on more with Aiden, I'm going to try to save grocery shopping for the weekends when Travis is around so I can go without a child.  It's so much easier on me and it gives Travis and Aiden some alone time.  We've done this in the past, but not frequently.  I went to get an oil change and bought groceries on Saturday without Aiden.  When I got home, Aiden was still awake.  Travis was having trouble getting him to fall asleep for nap time.  Finally, he just went in there and laid next to him on the floor.  Then he proceeded to take a nap of his own for an hour.

After nap time, Chris came over and we all headed to the Galveston Lone Star Rally.  Aiden loves motorcycles.  He points at every single one we see on the road.  His daycare is right near where the rally was, so there were lots of motorcycles driving and parked when I picked him up Friday evening.  We stood on the street corner and watched for a while.  He didn't seem to mind the noise, and really enjoyed just standing there watching, so we figured we'd take him to the rally during the day.  I've been at night in the past and it's definitely not for kids.  During the day it's a little less crowded, but it's still loud with all the bikes.

We brought Travis' ear muffs, just in case, but Aiden absolutely refused to wear them.  He was fine with the noise though, so I didn't worry about it too much.

Chris owns a bike so he wanted to peruse the bike parts tents.  I like going over there because they always have the really fancy bikes set up for viewing.  Aiden enjoyed it as well.  After that, we headed back over to the chaos and watched the continuous bike parade.  They set up a path down the Strand where anyone can ride their bike to show off.  There were some interesting people, let's just say that.  Here's a view down the Strand:

Both sides of the street are lined with parked bikes.  I read there were 400,000 bikes on the island this weekend.  I believe it.

Towards the end, we met up with Nadya, Alexey and Kate.  Kate was really nervous with all the loud bikes, but she said she wasn't scared and she didn't want to go home.  It was pretty cute.  She and Aiden caught up:

A common sight: Longhorn helmets.  Only makes sense as it was the Lone Star Rally.