State Medal Winner

Thursday May 20th, 2010 ~ Packed, loaded and ready to
head to Omaha for State Track! Garrett left this morning
with the team. We picked up Tyler and Cade after school,
last day...yeh! Off we go on our 'vacation'! We got to Omaha
about 7pm, checked into our motel and ate supper.


Friday May 21st, 2010 ~ We got up early and headed to
Burke Stadium. What a zoo! Bernie was here years ago
when he competed in high school but I had never been here.
An experience for sure!


You can see that we weren't the only 'early birds'. Later, this
place would be packed, even the grass areas were all people!
The driving is crazy too! You couldn't pay me to live in a big
city!!! Too hectic!


Some of the Paxton Tigers warming up. The weather isn't
too bad this morning. A nice cool breeze......for now!


Ready to cheer Garrett and the other Paxton qualifiers on!

Sister Becky came with friend Carol to watch Garrett and

Carol's son Chance from Ogallala compete.

The Paxton 4x8 relay team: Alternate Wade, Collin, Koby,

Zach and Garrett. All were a little nervous.

We were so glad we were able to meet up with Garrett before

the relay so we could wish him well! He is so excited to be here!

As are we!

A little pre-race talk! :)

Ready or not, it's time! The relay is the first race of the day.

Garrett is the 2nd runner on the relay. The 2nd runner's

are getting ready to get into position. Looks like Garrett's

trying to 'breathe' and take it all in.

15 teams competed in this race for Class D. Garrett is 10th

guy from left with arm up, ready for his turn. Didn't get a

good hand off picture from Koby to Garrett, too many kids

all together down there!

This Mullen kid has been a thorn in Garrett's side all season!

Garrett stays ahead of him where it counts tho!

Paxton finished 6th with their best time ever of 8:32!! All

the boys' cut time off their runs and did an awesome job!!
Only the top 8 get medals so lots of teams left empty handed.

Way to go Paxton!!!!

Garrett found us after his race. Lots of cheering and high-fives

and hugs!! We are so proud!

Collin, Garrett, Koby and Zach. State medal winners!! Nice

job boys'!! You ran your hearts out today and it paid off!

Garrett with his first ever state track medal!

Garrett also qualified in the 200 m dash. His race was the

last race in the morning session. He ran in the 3rd of 3 heats.

He was so determined and ran so hard!

This was so exciting to watch!

Garrett finished 2nd!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Garrett's time was 23.92, which is faster than his District time.

To qualify for finals, they take the 3 first places winners from

each heat then the next 5 fastest times. We couldn't hardly stand

ourselves when they announced that Garrett made it to finals!!!!!

We'll be back for more races tomorrow! ( Saturday). After we left

the track we headed to the big Cabela's and Village Point Mall. Talk

about culture shock! They don't have those stores out west!!! The

shopping choices were awesome, the pocket book was not! darn!

We ate at Valentino's then headed back to the motel so the boys' could

swim. Was a good day!

Saturday May 22nd, 2010 ~ Another early morning and

crazy traffic to get to Burke. Parking was unbelievable and

we ended up parking about a mile away! It rained early this

morning and the day is starting off hot and humid. They began

today's activities with the Parade of Champions.

Collin, Zack, Wade, Amber, Sydney, Garrett, Koby & Brekkan.

Day 2, before the races. Proud Mom!!

Garrett sat with us for awhile during the morning events.

He won't race until 3:30pm. Today was SOOOO hot! ugh!

Made for kind of a long day but we saw so many talented

atheletes. It really has been a fun couple of days!

Finally, the moment we've been waiting for!

Garrett is in lane 8. They switched directions

for this race so it will go the opposite direction

so we won't be able to see it very well from our

side! darn!

Go Garrett Go!!!!!!!

Garrett got 5th place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He had an awesome run

and a time of 23.75!! O my gosh, how exciting!!!!!

Garrett with his 2nd State Track Medal!

He is so excited and we couln't be more proud!

Coach Schroeder couldn't be more excited

either!!!! He was so proud of Garrett!!!

We Came, We Saw, We Conquered!!!!!! Garrett qualified in

2 events to get here and is leaving with 2 medals!! What an

accomplishment!! We are so proud!!

Proud Dad!!

Garrett was able to leave with us Saturday afternoon. We

went back to Village Point Mall so Garrett could look around

the big Scheel's store. I got to go to Archiver's again!!! :) That's

a scrapbookers dreamstore! :) Anyway, we drove out of Omaha

and found a motel in Gretna. We checked in, ate supper then the

boys' had fun in the pool. It's been a long, hot day so it's good to relax.

Sunday May 23rd, 2010 ~ We're off to enjoy our last day of

'vacation'. After breakfast we're doing some 'site seeing'.

We stopped by the stadium to look around.

Future Huskers???

We stopped at the SAC Museum. Cade and

Bernie have never been here. Cade is anxious

to look around. He loves WWII history!

Right inside the doors is a huge SR-71. It is massive in size!

Tyler, Cade, Bernie and Garrett.

All of the aircraft in the hanger are so

big, my pictures just don't do justice.

Here, the propeller alone is bigger than Cade

and he is 5'2!

Garrett and Tyler check out the inside of a cockpit.

Cade was so surprised when he pushed the red button and

a loud roaring engine sound came on!

Bernie and I.

We spent almost 2 hours here. We enjoyed looking around

and seeing all of the history. Afterwards, we hit the road

again, stopping in Grand Island to eat lunch ( passing by lots

more great shopping! ) and stopped at Cabela's in Kearney

then stopped at the good 'ol Windy Gap in Paxton to eat supper.

We've had a great 4 days! It was so nice to get away!

This is what a tired Track star looks like! :)

p.s. Sorry to all of our Omaha/Lincoln family!!

We didn't get much advanced notice before

heading to State and things were so busy and

hectic while we were there! We'll call next time tho! :)