Emi and Carmel & the Speedway

Happy 1-year-old Birthday, Emi! 

I remember the first couple of weeks that I got to spend in Denver helping hold baby Emi and taking her for a walk each day. I LOVED watching Marty and Lizzie become wonderful parents, literally overnight.

It was such a sweet time.

We get to celebrate Emi's birthday with her in person on Sunday!

Today, we were so excited to get to meet Bob and Rhonda at their home, see where Michael grew up and get a tour of his hometown, Carmel, Indiana! 

It's a beautiful town and I was in love with the historic homes, the family-friendly neighborhoods backing up to woods, a walking/riding path that would take you all the way to downtown, redeveloped "old" Carmel with its amazing master-planned (as in GENIUS-planned) mixed development with charming boutiques, restaurants and the neatest people statues on every corner, all the roundabouts with art and plantings, midtown with an amazing gorgeous cultural theater, shops and hotels and even a temple!

The icing on the community cake was the 5,000 student high school that was absolutely enormous!

(Think three swimming pools, soccer fields with bleachers and painted logos on the field, etc. 

Check out the Tik Tok video -- you'll be blown away.)

I wish I had another hour or two with Rhonda at their home to hear the stories about all her treasures she's collected from all her travels and just sit and visit (and eat cake from The Cake Bake Shop).

But Dan was keeping me on schedule to get to the track and meet up with Nick.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS -- or "the track of the Indy 500")

was big and exciting and jam-packed with semi haulers, race cars, teams and crew.

Much of the inside track was full of RV's and tail-gaters and people camping out to see this weekend's races!

None of the pictures I took gave the right perspective, so I'll try again tomorrow.

Nick brought a golf cart around to the entrance to pick us up and let's just say the track is so huge, he couldn't figure out where to find us. But thanks to "Find My Friends" and asking a bunch of people, he made it. 

We got a report on their morning (the car needed some tweaks after their practice session) and then met the car's owner and drivers of the matching car at the paddock, then left Pete and Nick so they could practice more driver transitions.

Dan and I took a golf cart tour of the track which is as exciting as Daytona, with a TON more teams and cars and people and spectators since this is a much bigger event with a lot more races throughout the days.

spotted: Mom's RBF

After getting the lay of the land, we made our way to the bleachers so we could stake out the best viewing for tomorrow and watch the evening practice session.

Nick felt like he should be driving at least a second faster so is a tiny bit discouraged.

But this is his first pro event and with practice, he'll build up skill and confidence.

We met The Petersens AND Michael and Courtney 

(who came into to town for the race because of its fantastic location) for dinner downtown

and we got to catch up on their work and school and life.

Race day tomorrow!