Palmer is officially crawling!

Yay! Finally. And much less frustrated while playing. This video was taken yesterday and I feel like today he is faster and crawls further! He is already 9 months old and growing up way too fast. He is so sociable. He loves smiling and getting people's attention...

My good friend Emily came for a visit and played and played with Palmer. I credit him finally crawling, to her. Palmer had to show off and show her what he could do!

WINTER X GAMES 13, JANUARY 22-25, 2009

Garth will be competing in SnoCross at the Winter X Games January 23rd and the 24th. The Winter X Games is the premier winter action sports event in the world. The annual event features athletes from around the globe competing for medals and prize money in the following sports: Skiing, Snowboard and Snowmobile.

Winter X Games 13 will air live on ESPN and ABC and will feature nighttime events. The event will remain at Aspen/Snowmass through 2010, for a total of nine consecutive years (2002-2010).

Friday 1/23: SnoCross Round 1-ESPN HD 9:30-11:30pm ET
Sat 1/24: SnoCross Final-ESPN HD 9-11pm ET
Event Schedule
TV Schedule

Garth's First Podium of '09!! Shakopee, MN

here is part of the press release from ISOC's homepage:

Kaufman Shows His Stamina While Tucker Pulls Away in Pro-Open

In Pro-Super Stock a melee, immediately following the start, set the stage as Ryan Simons, TJ Gulla, Ross Martin and Andrew Johnstad, all legitimate podium contenders, were forced to regroup and/or re-tether and work from deep behind the leaders. That set the stage for another Tucker Hibbert victory, continuing his unbeaten streak for the season and further securing his points lead.
At the close of the first lap of the 26 lap final, it was Tucker edging out Polaris pilots Levi LaVallee and Brett Bender with Garth Kaufman (Cat), DJ Eckstrom (Pol), Brett Turcotte (Cat) and Shaun Crapo (Pol) rounding out the seven riders in the 16 rider field. The running order remained consistent for over half the race, as Tucker began to checkout and encountered back runners on lap nine.
While the Tucker Hibbert show continued at the front, it was Garth Kaufman who perhaps put on the second most impressive ride of the night, as he slowly edged towards the front, picking off Bender on lap 16 and then having an impressive battle with Levi during the closing laps. The two swap the bridesmaid position several times during the closing laps, with Kaufman eventually getting the bouquet. At the line is was Tucker, who lapped every sled in the field except the top four riders, followed by Kaufman, LaVallee, Bender and Eckstrom to complete the top five.

Baby's First Christmas

We came home for a couple weeks for Christmas. We stayed at my mom's since someone is staying at our house and taking care of it and our dog-Duke. We got a lot of snow and had a lot of fun! Here are some pics from Christmas morning and our stay in Alta:

From Minnesota to Idaho and Back Again!

We got to come home (to Idaho) for a couple weeks for Christmas. We were going to drive home and checked on plane tickets-sometimes they are really cheap if they need to sell them last minute. We flew home Monday afternoon and were supposed to get into Idaho Falls at 10:50pm. Long long story short we didn't get home until Tuesday at 5:30pm. And then didn't have our luggage-it was lost for two extra days. As was our car seat. So we borrowed one from the airline which was probably 10 years old with no padding and cut into Palmer's neck. Here is the only picture I took of waiting in the airport. Neither one of us was into taking pictures. I knew I needed one for the blog though.

We had a great time home and and a wonderful Christmas. (Separate blog)

Our trip back to Minnesota was better-we sat on the tarmac for 2 hours from Minneapolis to Fargo so were late coming in. Other than that though-it all went smoothly. Palmer is a champ-I even had a gentleman come up to me after that flight and congratulate me for keeping Palmer under control and was very grateful to be on a flight with a well behaved child.

Ironwood, MI

Better late than never right?

Garth raced in Ironwood, MI the weekend of December 12-14. It was a crazy track-lots of riders were injured. Some severely. Sadly, a fellow pro racer-Mike Schultz-broke his leg so badly that it had to be amputated right above the knee. It was pretty scary to say the least. Garth's goal for that weekend was to ride safely and make it out with no broken bones, or worse...

Results:

Pro Open: 4th

Pro Super Stock: 13th (his spark plug cap came off so he was only running on one piston)

Here he is with Rory Beckman, his mechanic. They make a great team! We are so lucky to have him back with us this season. Rory has been his mechanic since the first year Garth raced the national circuit except for last year.