Strong Man competition

This year, the World's Strongest Man competition was held at none other than Wingate University!  This was huge news, since last year it was held in South Africa, the year before in some other country, etc....   Little ol' Wingate is now in that illustrious list of locations.  The campus was quite a-buzz.

Of course the boys here were dying to go, and, conveniently as it turned out, I was asked to do a couple of "preparing for graduate school" lyceum events on campus last week, so I was able to pack up all the kids and take them with me.  Once we arrived, I handed them off to Pete, who took them to see the Strong Man events, and I went worked at the (less interesting) lyceums.  So I missed most of the excitement, but I'm pretty sure I have a good handle on what all went on, since I've heard the stories from 5 different family members over and over and over....

The activities this year included events called things like Car Walk and Keg Toss, and the ones Pete and the kids watched were the Truck Pull and Atlas Stones.  The men pulled huge semi trucks from a dead stop through a slightly up-hill parking lot (crazy) for the aptly named Truck Pull,  and for the Atlas Stones event, they lifted huge boulders and set them on top of a high wall (also crazy).  Thankfully, the worst injury the kids witnessed was when a rock rolled and hit one of the men in the head, causing him to bleed... but I think it was a minor deal.  It was freaky to see all the oxygen tanks and ambulances standing by. 

We won't give away the news about who won the whole thing -- since the competition doesn't air (on ESPN is it?  or ESPN2?) until December sometime.

Needless to say, there has been a high level of focus on STRENGTH around our house this past week.  The kids all keep asking who is stronger than who, who can throw whom over how high of a target, who can bench-press whom, etc.

Colsen, especially is highly concerned about who the strongest among us is, and who it will ultimtely be once the kids are all grown.  We shall see, I suppose!  (Although I do hope none of them ultimately aspire to be in the World's Strongest Man contest.)