Baseball, Turtles, and More!

It has been a fun week here in Minnesota! We've had encounters with baseball, turtles, rockets, cars, airplanes, dresses, and dogs!! And all of it was good!!!

On Tuesday Braxton had a special opportunity to go on-field prior to a Twins game. He got to watch the players take batting practice and met a few of the players who autographed a baseball on his behalf. The most special moment was when Carlos Gomez, the Twins new Center Fielder, came over and met with Braxton, signed his hat and glove, posed for a couple of pictures, and then presented Braxton with the bat he was using during batting practice. Way cool!! And the Twins won that night 2-1 over the Washington Nationals.

Last Thursday was the 22nd annual Turtle Derby at the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital (where Braxton has been receiving his treatment for cancer). Every year they have a day of turtle racing to raise funds for the hospital. Beth took Braxton, Bayley, Zoe, and Emma to the races and they had a blast! There was a race every five to ten minutes. They had lots of festivities around the races, too. Braxton got to broadcast one of the races back to the patients on Floor 5B (where he had all of his treatments). The turtle sponsored by Floor 5B was "Slo-Mo" and he made it all the way to the finals. At that point, however, he must have felt a sense of accomplishment because he wouldn't move during the final race. Usually the race is not considered finished until all turtles have at lease gotten out of the "inner ring," but the judges decided Slo-Mo wasn't going anywhere.

Thursday night featured a soccer game for Emma. Her team is the "Rockets." It was a lot of fun watching the clump of children follow the ball back and forth across the pitch. Emma is more aggressive this year. At one point the ball came to her in front of the opponents goal. She had to get it lined up properly to try to score, so she stopped it with her hand and set it in front of the goal. The crowd roared with laughter!! She had fun!

After the soccer game, Rich and Barb took Emma by one of the local hotels which had a parking lot filled with vintage cars that were in town for a weekend car show. Emma especially enjoyed the pink cars!

On Saturday morning Paul had the chance to fly in an airplane. We drove up to Little Falls (the birthplace of Charles Lindbergh) and went to the municipal airport. They were having an event where local pilots volunteered to take children up for free plane rides. Paul even got to pilto the plane for a little bit while he was up on his 10 minute flight. Lots and lots of fun!!!

While Paul and I were up in Little Falls, Barb came by and took Zoe and Gretchen out shopping for dresses. Cathy finally has a wedding date picked out (August 22) and the girls have been invited to participate as flower girls. They had a great time and came back with beautiful dresses.

On Sunday Zoe went to camp and Beth took Bayley out shopping. I took Braxton, Paul, Gretchen, and Emma to one of the dog parks in Minneapolis. Of course we took Sunny & Rufus, too. It was a really nice day and everybody had a lot of fun watching and playing with the dogs. There were about five pugs at the park. There were also two Saint Bernards. And there was a Chinese-Crested that had the hair on the top of its head dyed pink. Boy was that an ugly dog!!!


+ posted by David