Tanner airing out of the "9" at Sk8 Cary Monday.....

Welcome!

I've been posting photos of Tanner skating on my photography blog for the past two years.  After much thought and consideration (and prodding from my mother), I'm going to post the skate photos/videos on this page from now on.  


I have copied the past posts from my photo blog (kimwomackphotography.com) below if you would like to take a look.  Obviously the dates are wrong as I just copied them all today.  (smile)

Friday Photo Fun...

New skate shoes and old skate shoes.  ;-)

Tanner - The return to skateboarding....

As promised (or threatened), I'm posting photos of T's first time back on his skateboard since the broken arm.  I was a little worried he would fall and re-break it.  I can't even begin to tell you the fit my mom was having over my letting him near a skateboard again.  Sigh.

I told T that if the weather was okay I would take him to Sk8 Cary this afternoon and stay till the late session was over.  Well, wouldn't you know it - the first time back on the board and it lasted all of 49 minutes.  No joke.  We had to pack up and leave.  Why?  Did he re-break the arm?  Did he fall and get hurt?  Did he decide he was done with skating forever?  Nope.   We left because too much dew had settled on the course and they closed the park.  What a bummer.

I had to threaten to get the following photograph.  I told him that if he dared to skate down ANY ramp in that park before I had my camera ready, there would be a hefty price to pay.  He obliged.

And this is the heavy dew on the course.  It makes the ramps very slippery.  Glad the park closed.  I wasn't ready for another broken bone.

Tanner gets to skate again!

The doctor said Tanner's arm has healed and he is ready to skate again.  So, in honor of this special occasion, I am posting the (literal) last two photos I have of Tanner at a skate park before he broke his arm.  The photos were taken on Nov. 22nd.  He broke his arm skating on Nov. 23 but I was not there to photograph him or witness the breaking of his arm.  Sigh.  God knows what I can handle and what I canNOT.  God, in His infinite wisdom, sent the correct person with Tanner who could handle a broken arm.....Kent!   I don't question God on such matters.  He knows.  I get the broken pinky fingers and bruises.  I'm good with that.

I apologize for the skate-heavy blog posts.  It's the middle of the winter.  I'm a little stir crazy. I'm sick of children who confine themselves to their room to play video games for hours and scream things at the t.v. like "Throw a monkey at it!  Throw a monkey at it!".  I'm not joking about the monkey comment. He really yells that.  You can't make this stuff up.  I think it has something to do with Zombies.  Who knows.   

Tanner - November 22, 2011.....

I apologized in advance as  I plan to take photos of the "return to skating", so be prepared.  Sorry.  If you object, call me - I will take your photo too.  You won't even have to get on a skateboard.

Tomorrow is the day.....

Pray for us.  Hopefully tomorrow will be out last visit with the doctor about Tanner's arm and he will skate again. SOON.  Video games are on my last nerve. 

I know in the last post, I said I would be posting more photos but some sort of bug attacked me and I've been sick as a dog.  I'm feeling better now and I put together this photo collage from the past two years.......

Five days........

The countdown is on.  Tanner and I are counting the days until he goes back for (hopefully) his LAST appointment with the orthopedic surgeon.  The same surgeon who will (hopefully) release Tanner to resume skateboarding again!

Broken arms are no fun.  

Tanner broke his arm - you guessed it - skateboarding!  He broke it the day before Thanksgiving and had to have surgery to fix his broken elbow.  We miss skating.  We miss it very much.  

I was looking through some of the "early years" of T's skate career and ran across some that I had forgotten.  I thought I would share them here.  

What a difference in two short years........

(Left photo - 2 ft ramp at "Foundation".  Right photo - 9 ft ramp at Sk8 Cary)

Stay tuned....... 

I plan to add more in the next few days.

MIA

Recently, a friend mentioned that I haven't put anything new on my blog in a while.  I won't name names but her name begins with an "R" and ends in an "A" and rhymes with "Honda".  (smile)  I appreciate friends who keep it real and let me know I need to get on the ball.  I also appreciate friends who loyally check my blog and encourage me.  Thanks (R)Honda! 


What can I say?  Life has been really busy the past few weeks.  Here are some photos of what I've been up to - minus school, homework, and jobs......


First and foremost - Tanner had his tonsils and adenoids removed yesterday.  He was a trooper and did very well!  The middle photo was taken in the recovery room with my phone.  He was literally crying right before I took the photo and I was trying to get his mind off everything.  I told him to look at me and he gave me the funniest grin and went right back to tears streaming down his cheeks.  I will never again say my child won't humor me when it comes to photos. (That's not true, I will complain about that every time it happens because I gave birth to him and he owes me!)

Baseball is still a daily part of our lives. 

We have played a LOT of baseball.  (I can say that because I know for a fact the coach won't see this as he doesn't bother to read my blog.) I love baseball.  However, I'm not as fond of baseball 4 counties away.
Tanner loves baseball.  Even baseball in Clemmons.   

In the above photo - Tanner stole 2nd base without the consent of either coach.  He slid into the base, barely making it.  What you can't see is his daddy (who is also the coach) yelling at him from the 3rd base line.  Tanner thought the whole thing was funny.  
His dad did too....once he was on base.



I have carted Tanner to several skate parks over the last few weeks.  His new favorite park is Marsh Creek.  He has learned to "air out" of the bowl.  If that holds no meaning for you, don't worry - Tanner had to explain it to me too.

Ouch.  
Note to Tanner: elbow pads should make the short list of items to bring to a concrete park next time. 

 

 I have no idea what YL stands for. 

Someone's initials possibly?  Strong names like: Yule Longerhorn, Yuke Loon, Yosimity Larmin, Yorkeshire Lehman? 

Maybe the person who painted that wanted to leave a message for other skaters?  Maybe it stands for "Ya'll LOOK!" 

or Young Love?

Yard Lacing?

Yak Lacquer?

Yardage Label??????

Then again, maybe not.

We shall never know.

  

Levi, also camera shy - even if he is holding a camera himself.........

I will continue to complain about that forever too.

And finally, a current photo of Britt........










                       ....................












   Oh wait........






                      ............nope. 

No current photo of Britt because he is living the life of a vampire and I don't see him during daylight hours.



Sigh.





Back to Tanner - this is what he has been doing since he came home from surgery - gaming.

He has also been texting.  Not sure who he is texting but he has been burning someone's phone up.  

And I forgot to tell you that he isn't talking (obviously because his throat is sore) so he has taken to snapping his fingers at me when he wants something.  I'm not sure how much longer I'm gonna let that go on.  I have a ton of sympathy for him but that finger snapping  thing has GOT to stop.  

Maybe I will buy him a bell. 


I can break that when it gets to be too much.  


Ha. 
Ha.

Woodward TAP Week, Day 5

It was raining and storming when we woke up and did that off and on all day so we did not visit camp on this day either.  The campers would all be skating/riding the indoor parks so we decided to stay around the hotel again.  I sure do miss Tanner!  


We went looking for a bridge we've passed several times but were too far away from to get decent photos of until today.  

I took other photos, but it's late and I'm ready to get some shut-eye so I can see my youngin tomorrow!

Woodward TAP Week, Day 4.......

Here are the wonderful photos I took Wednesday..........








[crickets chirping]








Uhmmmm. 


No photos. 


Not a single one. 


We didn't visit camp Day 4.  Our hotel is almost 2 hours from camp so the drive there and back is quite a haul.  Tanner did text me late to say he landed the mini mega ramp and a kickflip indy.  (If you are my FaceBook friend, you know there was much discussion as to exactly what a kickflip indy was)


Kent and I mostly hung out at the hotel, watched a movie (Conan), went to a bookstore and ate Japanese. 

Tanner - Woodward TAP Week, Day 3

I am way behind on posting the TAP Week Woodward trip.  Sorry.


Day 3 was BUSY! I took this photo to after unplugging JUST the laptops from the power cords and removing the external hard drive. I think we may be addicted to our electronic devices.  There is a 12-step program in our future. 

Next we visited Hershey, PA.  We toured the Hershey museum.  It was very interesting but after the museum, I hate to say it, but we grew tired of chocolate. [gasp] 

They did have some neat street lights.

Kent, outside the Hershey Museum.  He agreed to this photo only if I let him take one of me next.  
Notice there is no photo of me. 

Sucker.
(I love you Sweety!)

 Chocolate Kiss machine.  I think I'm in love.

Next, we visited Lancaster, PA and took a buggy ride through the country to visit a real Amish farm.  The fella in the photo is Ben.  Ben was our buggy driver and on top of being very nice, informative and an all-around cool guy, Ben changed my perception of Amish people.  Completely.  I'm not sure what that perception was before I met Ben but it is certainly different now. 

This little Amish boy was selling cookies to the people in the buggy.  His family and Ben are friends and Ben is especially fond of this particular child.  He talked about him like he was his own son.  His name is Sammy and he starts the 1st Grade in a week.  I didn't realize Amish children don't start school until the 1st grade.

We've seen some odd things along the back roads of PA during our two summer trips here.  I saw a large tree fall as we were passing by.  I saw a sign that said "Four Sale".  I've seen more shirtless men standing on the side of the road than I care to think about. This next picture takes the cake.  I cannot for the life of me figure out why a super hero is riding in the back of that Amish buggy.  If you figure it out, please let me know.

And then we went to Camp Woodward...........
Talk about seeing odd things.   What possessed someone to drape a pair of boxers over this traffic cone?  Kids skated by the cone.  Counselors walked past.  No one seemed to even take note that a pair of underwear was hanging on a traffic cone in the middle of the sidewalk.  I can only imagine it is typical boy humor.  
At least it wasn't a pair of tighty-whities.

We found Tanner waiting at the mini mega ramp.  The newbies that passed the test to skate it had to wait until 6:30.  I think T was there waiting, along with 10 other kids, around 5:30. 

I stood under some kids waiting to see the show.

So, we waited too.  We watched a bunch of kids gather at the entrance to Lot 8.  We weren't sure why (and too lazy/tired to go look) until this golf cart pulled up and gathered the kid in the red t-shirt.  He busted his chin open on one of the ramps.  I guess seeing fresh blood and gore never gets old to a kid.... even after a couple of weeks at camp.

  
The anticipated moment arrives:  The skaters all line up and start to the top of the mini mega for their turn on the famed ramp.

 Tanner, waiting to drop in.....

.....getting some air over the hip........

(Yes, I know my name is upside down.  Just wanted to see if you noticed......not really.  I have no idea how that happened and I'm too tired to fix it)

.....bails and slides to the bottom.  Then back to top for another try!

Side note:  I did not send Tanner with the shirt he is wearing OR the helmet.  Kent and I discussed whether we thought T would actually purchase clothing at the camp store.  It is NOT like this child to stop skating to do anything other than what is absolutely necessary to live (like purchase t-shirts) so we finally came to the conclusion he probably won the shirt and bought the helmet.  We were right.  I finally got a chance to ask T and he said "I won the shirt during a competition on the mini vert and I bought the helmet".  I figure the only reason he bought the helmet was to make it harder for me to pick him out of a crowd when I arrived at camp.  Not many of the kids had the olive green helmet he used to wear.  Lots of kids have black helmets.  Sigh. 

Tanner - Woodward TAP Week, Day 2

Day 2:

After procuring our traditional Red Bull smoothie so we could begin the hunt for T, we found him skating the Rock Garden. We quietly sat in the bleachers and tried to blend in to get a few quick pictures of him before he saw us and slipped away.  

We chatted with one of the counselors and when we looked up, he was gone.  We had lost T again.  He is a slippery little sucker.  (smile)  We found him skating Lot 8 and practicing to test for the mini mega ramp.  If you don't remember what the mini mega ramp looks like - it is HERE. 

Below is a photo of the kids waiting to drop in on this 14 ft (???) half pipe.  This was part of the test.  You have to be able to skate this before you can even think about skating the mini mega ramp.

Good news:  Tanner passed!  Which means -  he gets to skate the mini mega ramp! 
Bad news:   Tanner passed! Which means - he gets to skate the mini mega ramp!



Camp Woodward is not for the faint of heart.  
Do you see the kid on top of the Red Bull thing, video taping the bmx rider?  I can only guess how high that kid is.  You can't tell but there is a big drop below him.  His mom would have a fit!

Oh, one of the visiting pros this week is Chris Cole.  I got a photo of him.  It's awesome.  Very detailed.  Can't wait for you to see it..............................

...................................

I think Chris has been taking lessons from Tanner on how to avoid photos.  Hmmmmm.


Stay tuned for Day 3 to find out if Tanner skates the mini mega or not.....................

Tanner - Woodward TAP Week, Day 1

Day 1
It was raining when we took T to camp.  Campers aren't allowed to skate the first day (this goes for bmx, in-line skates, snowboards, etc.) so the rain wasn't too much of a big deal.  

Camp Woodward looks really cool after the rain when the steam rises off the side of the mountains.  It is a beautiful place.


My stepson, Levi, took a photo much like this one during his week of camp in June.  I love photomerge!  (Hi Levi!!!)

Some things never change......

...like our addiction to Red Bull smoothies.......

..... and apparently Tanner's need to distance himself from his mother as soon as possible, lest someone see him with her.  He used the excuse that some pros were skating at Lot 9 and he wanted to see them.  
Yeah.  Right.

Stay tuned.......

Friday Photo Fun...............

This is our friend Nolan at Sk8 Cary doing an invert on the nine.  Nolan is a talented skater and can do some pretty awesome things but this is my favorite trick.

 

And of course, here is T at Sk8 Cary.  This is also the only thing that he does, to date, that actually scares me. 

 

(Please excuse the picture quality. It was dark and very tough to get decent photos, even with the lights.)

Friday Photo Fun: The Mini Mega Ramp vs. the Mini, Mini, Mega Ramp

As if T's life isn't already consumed by skateboarding, the floor of his room is covered (and I do mean COVERED) in a miniature skate park that he built using either Tech Deck toys or making the ramps himself using cardboard and tape......all the tape in the house as a matter of fact.  

This is the latest park addition - the Mini Mega Ramp, Tech Deck style! 

 The bottom photo is the real Mini Mega Ramp at Camp Woodward.

Friday photo fun: 187 Killer Pads, skate shoes and the honorable mention goes to Shoe Goo...... my, oh my.

I wasn't quite prepared for the price tag on the 187 Killer Pads but wow - I think they were worth the money.  Around the knees the padding is about 2 inches thick AND the plastic knee cap can be replaced.  I'm encouraged with the thought the plastic part will wear out before the pads.  Tanner sure was excited about these pads.  He said landing (or more importantly - falling) is much easier and less painful wearing them.  T is trying to air some pretty big stuff these days that makes my heart beat in slow motion and I don't even want to talk about the falls and slides he does from ramps that I secretly wish he wouldn't skate. Mostly I wish I could skip the pads and just bubble wrap him.  Sigh.


....for the record - my child does actually own a decent pair of tennis shoes, or rather - "school shoes".  Promise.  The shoes in the photo are his "skate shoes" and believe it or not, they are a month and 4 days old.  I bought them so he would have new shoes to wear to camp.  In case you don't have an up-close and personal relationship with skateboarding then it is important to know the boards are covered in what can only be described as sand paper.  That stuff literally "eats" away the shoes.  Foolish little me thought that when he started to show interest in this sport - the skateboards would be the most expensive part.  Nope.  Shoes are going to break the bank.  We replace shoes like nobody's business. I don't mean we buy shoes because they "look bad".  I mean we literally replace skate shoes because there are HUGE holes in them.  Whoever invented Shoe Goo is a genius.  Thank you.

Tanner's new 187 Killer Pads and "new shoes":

Did I mention that I am going to buy stock in shoe laces?  They don't stand a chance against a skateboard.

....and just because I think this is funny.......

Sometimes you capture more than you intended to in an image.  lol! 

Camp Woodward - photo of what your child's clothes will look like when they return home.....

I remembered I took this picture after we came back from Camp Woodward.  Below is a photo of what the shirt T was wearing looked like when we picked him up from camp.  It was so unbelievable to me that I had to immortalize the shirt in print.  I put a clean, white t-shirt next to it to further drive home the point of just how filthy he was.

A good number of my friends think I'm nuts for allowing T to skateboard because he could get hurt, break bones, or worse.  The week before we left for Woodward, I was constantly asked wasn't I worried my child would get hurt on those huge ramps while at camp.  My response was always "I'm more worried Tanner won't bathe, change underwear, brush his teeth, eat properly, and eat too much candy or ice cream."
From the looks of the shirt, I think my fears were right on the money.

The dark stains around the Element symbol are chocolate ice cream.
The yellow stain at the bottom is mustard from a hot dog.
The dark stain around the collar is sweat mixed with dirt.  Eww.
One can only imagine what the rest of the stains consist of..... wow.

I know he actually did change clothes a couple of times while at camp because we visited several days and I have pictures of him in different shirts.  The fact that he could get THIS nasty in one 24 hour time frame is frightening.  ha ha!  Boys are sincerely a different breed.

Tanner is looking forward to going back in a few weeks and trying to destroy another clean, white t-shirt!
On that note, I think about the time and effort I took to write his name in every single item of clothing he took to camp.  Well, I may have learned a lesson.  I believe that when he goes back to camp, I will skip writing his name on everything and put the days of the week! (smile)