Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Fun at the New Ballyard

Still recovering from a great weekend. Drove up to the "Cities" to visit new grandkid, Eddie. Upon arriving Grandma Jo immediately took over "tending to Eddie" responsibilities. And I took over the responsibility of taste testing a flourless chocolate cake Summer had prepared. Actually the cake was supposed to be my prize for winning the "Guess the Baby Stuff" contest which I did in fact win with no public recognition or fanfare whatsoever. Saturday was a day of rest for me. I restricted myself to limited activities. In the morning, on a trip to the Richfield Farmers' Market, I limited my activity to arguing with a couple of "Master Gardener" ladies about the identification of a branch from a Mulberry tree in the kids' backyard. This allowed me to spend the remainder of the day gloating over my correct assessment. (Reid looked it up on the internet, of course) The women shopped and Reid went over hang out with some buddies while I prepared for a second round with that chocolate treat. As the evening went on we were bombarded with storm warnings, storm watches, tornado warnings and tornado watches. How harrowing! Jo and Summer tried to decide whether to wake Eddie and head for the safety of the basement while I made plans for a safe haven for the cake. The storms passed, Eddie and the cake both survived and Reid made it home intact.
Now the highlight of the weekend. (and the secondary reason for us being there) Off to Target Field, the newly constructed home of the Minnesota Twins. This would be Eddie's first baseball game (he had already attended a Viking's game shortly after birth) and the Twins were playnig the much hated (at least by me) White Sox. I've always said that I would rather see the Sox lose than the Cubs win. Yep that's what I always said. After explaining to Reid, an avid soccer player and fan, that when a foul ball comes your way, "don't try to hit it with your forehead". Fortunately there were no head shots AND the Twins managed to pull out a victory in the bottom of the ninth. One side note about the new stadium, there was weird stuff going on, something you don't see down at Wrigley (or even Sox park) the vendors were putting red stuff on the hot dogs. I believe they called it catsoup or cat something. Oh well, folks up here go ice fishing, kill the fish, soak them in lye and eat them. Probably just trying to get that catsup taste out of their mouths. A couple more bites of that chocolate cake and it was back home just in time to greet Jo's niece and four of her kids who came up to spend a few days in our neck of the woods. On their last visit they checked out the arm and shoulder of the woods.
Did I mention that the Sox lost?

Grandpa explains the finer points of soccer with Eddie.

"Dad! Dad! Dad!"