WingFest Junior Ninjas

 This weekend the boys did a Kids Ninja competition at Wingfest (the Buffalo Wing Festival).  The guys who run the gym have been working overtime getting it all set up! Fortunately, the weather cooperated.  :)

It was a fun morning, although a lot of it was hanging around before the competition.  (James was pleased that he got to test out some of the obstacles -- since he was the smallest competitor, they wanted to make sure the obstacles were possible for the little guys.  Mattie also got to test out the quintuple steps.)

The boys were competing in the 6-8 year old division.  The top three finishers got to go on to the National Ninja League finals.

James had a great start to his run, but in the middle of the course was the Feeter-Totter -- an obstacle that he's either never completed or only done once or twice.  (He's getting the hang of it, but just isn't quite there yet.)  So, although he made a great effort, he didn't make it past that one.  (When he finished, one of the moms standing near me said to Ninja Darren, "I love that kid!" and Ninja Darren said, "I love that kid!"  So say we all!)

The order of the obstacles was even tougher for Matthew -- he has a hard time with the Skyline (another balance obstacle), which was the second one in the course.  So, he fell off and his run ended there, even though he could have done some of the later obstacles.  But they both gave it a good try!

James came in fourth, and he was really disappointed that he wasn't getting to go to the championships.  He handled it very well, though -- I was proud of him for being a good sport.  (Also, the finals are in Connecticut in February, and going to Conn in the middle of winter is not Mike and my idea of fun -- so while it would have been cool for James to be in the Nationals, we weren't too sad that it didn't happen.)

After that we went to have some wings, but ended up only trying one place (but three different kinds of wings), since it was hot and the lines were long.  Since a lot of the places were local, it was a little hard to get motivated to stand in line to get wings that we could just go to a restaurant and enjoy in air-conditioned comfort. :)  They did have one place that came all the way from Australia, but the line for that one was crazy!

Buffalo is a small world -- a wine company had a booth giving away fans and sunglasses, and lo and behold, the guy working there was one of the boys' teachers from Rolly Pollies!

Taking the shade where we can find it

I cannot get over the celery and blue cheese hats.

Plates with a spot for your drink! Genius!