Ninja Warrior Weekend

As many of you know, Alex loves the tv show "American Ninja Warrior." (Dave and I do too; we've been watching for several years and got Alex into it last year.) So, we were very excited to learn that there was a Ninja Warrior event fairly close by in Rockford, Michigan. 

Aside from a little too much rain and mud, it was a fanstatic event! Alex got to run a ninja course several times, met and got autographs from 15 athletes from the tv show, and got to watch them compete. It was a great day. Lots of pictures ahead.

His first run of the intermediate kids' course

Conquering the warped wall later in the day

Meeting lots of Ninja Warrior athletes

First up was one of Alex's favorites, Jamie Rahn, a.k.a. Captain NBC

Next, family favorite, Kevin Bull

James "The Beast" McGrath

Another family favorite, Joe "The Weatherman" Moravsky (We also got to meet his wife, and later Alex was bummed that he didn't ask for her autograph too, but we didn't get a chance to see her again.)

"Mr. Consistency" Paul Kasemir

Andrew Lowes took a break from his snack to chat

Alex was really excited to meet Drew Dreschel (He was bummed that The Weatherman didn't have any kid-sized t-shirts, but Drew did, so Alex is now the proud owner of a Real Life Ninja shirt.)

Rookie Daniel Gil didn't sing, but he did add to Alex's autograph collection

We unexpectedly encountered Evan "The Rocket" Dollard, who was super-nice and got Alex to pose with him

Speaking of posing, the next ninja we ran into was Ryan Stratis, who lives up to his reputation and did "The Strat" with Alex

Then we got to meet Michelle Warnky, which we were really looking forward to because we recently learned that Alex's Uncle Mark went to college with her parents. We had a good conversation with Michelle about that, and Alex is very excited that we have a connection to a Ninja Warrior athlete.

We caught up with Dustin Rocho after he was helping someone learn how to do the salmon ladder. It was a quieter area, so we had some time to chat with him and had a very interesting conversation about the show and his training.

Just before we were leaving to take a break from the heat, I noticed that Steven Moul was at the event, so we got his autograph too. If you don't watch Ninja Warrior, all I will say is be sure you have some Kleenex if you watch Steven's story and his run.

I'm not sure how I missed the photo op with Elet Hall, but he added his signature "Send it!" to Alex's shirt. We also got Andrew Karsen's autograph after his evening run, but there's no picture because of the rain and chaos at the time. We missed a few of the athletes at the event, but obviously got most of them!

Alex trying the Devil Steps

Alex and Dave pretending they are going to run the professional course, and then pics of some of the athletes running the course at the end of the day before they had to close it for bad weather.

Drew transitioning to the cargo net

The Beast on the ring slider

Evan Dollard (in blue) providing the sideline commentary while James McGrath tries to scale a wet warped wall

Alex (in blue, on the fence) cheering on Jamie Rahn

Joe Moravsky made it up the wall despite the rain

Michelle Warnky taking on the ring slider in what would turn out to be the last run of the night

We had a blast, and Alex has already decided that he wants to go back next year and volunteer to work at the event.

One Last Vacation Post

Wrapping up the vacation coverage, here are a handful of additional pictures from the trip. It was such a good time that I think we're all trying to figure out when we can go back.

Family selfie

Ready for the day (in Mom's hat)

Exploring the lost city of Atlantis

Sawfish

Mom and son fun

Goofy family selfie

Climber's Rush

Not surprisingly, Alex really wanted to go rock climbing once he knew that was an option. He got to do two climbs. For the first they put him on a medium hard wall, which took him three minutes to scale. So, for the second climb, they put him on the highest tower. Several people on the beach across from the climbing center and on the lazy river below were watching him, and he got a big round of applause when he made it to the top. He had a great time and would have loved to have climbed all day.

The First Climb

The Big Climb

The only picture of him ringing the bell at the top is blurry. Oops!

Junior Ultimate Trainer for a Day

Alex spent part of one day in the Junior Ultimate Trainer program. He got to see all sorts of marine animals, learn about how they are cared for and fed, and even had a behind the scenes tour of the facility. He had a lot of fun and made some new friends.

Family Vacation!

For the second half of Alex's Spring Break, we had our first big family vacation with just the three of us. We went to the super-mega-crazy-water park Atlantis in the Bahamas. The days were non-stop, and Dave and I are exhausted, but we had a fantastic time despite a bit too much sun and some river rapids wipe outs.

We were largely unplugged, so didn't get a ton of pictures, but I brought the digital camera out a few days. In addition, Alex spent part of one day as a Junior Ultimate Trainer for a Day, and they took pictures of the experience for us. I'll get to those in another post, but here are some pictures to get started.

This was Alex's first opportunity to be in the ocean. I was very happy to finally have the chance to introduce him to the Atlantic. He kept finding large rocks in the water and would bring these "ocean rocks" up to our towels. He was a bit disappointed when I explained that they would not be coming back with us.