My longtime and very dear friend, Tanya, lives with her husband, Andrew, and their son, Declan, just outside Indianapolis, and they welcomed us for a visit in early August. Declan and James are great friends and share a love of all things loud and powered by an engine.
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| James trying out Declan’s little motorbike. He loved it! |
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| He appears ready to go fast, and yet, he really wasn’t going that quickly. Just has the face for it. |
Andrew happens to be
Andrew Hines, NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle 5-time Champion, so as it turns out, there are a lot of things that go vroom in their world. Chris and James were in heaven! Andrew took us on a tour of the local shop where some of the magic happens. I’m pretty sure Chris wanted to move in and live there forever, happily smelling the oil and grease in the air…
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| Whoa! Look at the size of that tire! |
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| Chris happily checking out all the details of the bike. Absorbing by osmosis, maybe?? |
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| I love how perfectly these were all lined up. It looked like art! |
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| He has the position down, just needs to grow a little bit bigger. |
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| I have no idea what they are looking at, but I’m pretty sure it was gear-head nerd stuff. |
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| I’m pretty sure that’s not what that was intended for, but I admit to not really knowing my way around a shop… |
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| James and Declan can always find a way to entertain themselves and it usually involves speed. |
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| James and Declan. Such cute little buddies. |
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| Even the local restaurants have various types of race vehicles. Which they of course had to “drive”. |
Tanya and Andrew have some rural property nearby that they are planning on building a house in the next few years. In the meantime, it serves as a great location for tractor driving and homemade dirt-bike tracks.
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| We’re training him to start mowing the yard soon. |
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| Andrew and Declan, a father and son dynamic dirt-bike duo. |
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| James got all geared up for his turn on the dirt-bike. |
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| Andrew took him around to make sure he was okay. He was SOOOOOO excited! |
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| Look at our big boy! He did really well and was surprisingly afraid of going too fast. |
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| This is how Tanya and I enjoyed the weekend. Wine and Outlander. |
We were lucky enough to be able to time our weekend visit to coincide with my favorite singer,
Ray LaMontagne, having an awesome outdoor concert in Indy. Tanya arranged the babysitter (woohoo to that!) and the adults enjoyed a great night out.
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| I am so grateful for this friendship that goes back 30 years! |
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| We actually remembered to take a group shot. Nice job with the selfie, Andrew! |
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| A beautiful night for an amazing concert! |
Thanks again for a super-fun weekend, Hines Family! Can’t wait to do it again!
