Rain... it breaks stuff

My parents and I took the boys to the Harrisburg Senators game on Thursday while Geana took Ella and Anna to a doctor's appointment and then got their nails done.


There are two things that I enjoy photographing more than anything else... the kids... and baseball. When the two things intersect, I thoroughly enjoy the task of snapping away photo after photo. I took this picture as we got there and uploaded it to twitpic right away... good thing I did.

When we got to the ballpark it was about 85 degrees, and rising, with 99.9% humidity. By the third inning we had spilled one large Sprite, realized that we forgot our sunblock, and went to the potty 3 separate times. (As an aside - Metro Bank Park still uses old school urinals. The last time I saw these were in Cleveland's Municipal Stadium in 1988. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about - instead of individual white porcelain urinals - they have a single stainless steel trough that runs the length of the bathroom wall. Guys have to claim their spot, unzip, and just let her rip. No privacy. No shame. No nonsense. The boys thought this was great! Upon seeing the trough, James said, "Dad - what is this? Do you take a bath in there?" Ummmm.... no.)

The kids were miserable... like "end of the world" kind of miserable. At one point we went to the ATM machine, which was in a small air conditioned kiosk, and James said, "Dad - this is the best part of the whole trip so far!" We stayed in the kiosk until an old lady came up behind us and we had to vacate the premises. I think she thought we were robbing the machine.

Then... the skies opened up in the 7th inning. It poured. And poured. And poured. Then it let up for a second... and then it poured again. We were soaked. Before the rain started, it was up to 90 degrees and the rain was a welcome relief. I've never stayed in my seats during that type of rain at a ballgame. They were still playing and we were the only people in the seats. The first baseman for the Curve, Jason Delaney, felt sorry for us and gave us their warm-up ball after they were done and starting the bottom of the 7th. Here is Sammy and my Dad in the rain with the ball. The large streaks in the picture are the rain drops pelting down from the sky.

Eventually the umps delayed the game and we left. I took a hundred awesome pics - most before the rain came. When I went to upload them to the computer, it didn't work. Likely because the rain got the camera wet. The pictures above came from my phone that I sent to facebook or twitpic. My phone died, too. As we speak it is sitting in a bag of rice - still trying to dry out. Please keep my phone in your thoughts and prayers... UGH. I learned a valuable lesson this week - STOP TAKING PICTURES WHEN IT RAINS, MORON!

Other than the phone breaking (the camera works again), we had an awesome time. Minor League baseball with the kids is so much fun! I recommend it for anyone with kids. It's actually more entertaining than the big leagues, because of the close proximity to the players and the fun games in between innings. Sammy caught a t-shirt, too.

Adults vs. Kids

The girls had their annual (I guess it's annual - this is our first season) girls vs. Parents softball game. I was super excited for the game... but came home utterly amazed at people's... umm.... lack of awareness (nah), blatunt disregard for safety (nah), f-ing stupidity... that's it.

Someone should tell these 30 to 40 year-old men that they are playing FOUR YEAR OLD GIRLS! Seriously - I wish I had my video camera with me because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Some of these dudes were crushing the ball to the fence. Literally - taking a stance and swinging as hard as they could. One guy actually hit the fence on a fly. Never mind that there were about 10 four year-olds about 15 feet in front of him - none of which were actually paying attention enough to follow what was going on or be alert if a screaming liner happened to be hit their way. Way to go dude... you can hit a softball, thrown from a pitching machine, to the fence on a tball field. Hey - maybe you should unzip and whip it out, too. This'll really show all of the other parents how manly you are. One thing is for sure - it would be equally inappropriate.

Only one kid actually took a line drive off of her head today... Anna. She's fine - but of course it happened to my kid. That dude's kid was probably picking her nose, ducking behind the pitching machine for safety. Geana asked Anna if she was okay and she was upset that she didn't catch the ball but she stayed in the game. In related news, Anna came in second of about 30 girls in a cut-throat game of "Simon Says." She only lost to a 6 year-old but was visibly upset when she was eliminated. She is, hands down, the most competitive of my kids. One time we were playing "The Quiet Game" and about 20 minutes after I thought we had completed the game she tapped on my shoulder asking the non-verbal question, "Yo Dad - can I talk yet?"

Speaking of injuries - Sammy is on the 15 day DL. He helped coach firstbase today and followed the coach around because of his cast. He actually thought it was a lot of fun.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there!

Throwing Away Clothes and Other Joys

Today Geana and I went to the house and cleaned out our bedroom. We had about 15 bags of trash to take away. The funny thing is that, all of it, is just stuff that we've been wanting to throw away for years. (Mostly Geana's old clothes.) We went through the ENTIRE room and purged anything that we haven't worn or used in the past 6 months. I got rid of some old work clothes that I will never wear again and lots of sweatshirts and things that I have not worn in years.

The one good thing was some of the other stuff we found. When we moved into our house we had two boxes of "junk that we wanted to keep" from our old master bedroom. Those boxes contained some really cool things. I saw old pictures of Sammy from before the quads were born. I found some new born pictures of the quads from the NICU. It was a lot of fun to take a look at that old stuff.

The two most touching things that I found were a letter from my Dad and a book from my Mom. The letter from my Dad was given to me when I married Geana and the book was given to me when I graduated from High School (I think) from my mother. It's funny because, here I am moving back into their home, and one of the first things I find in our house are these letters from them talking about me embarking new journeys in my life. It wasn't said in these exact words, but reading between the lines you can see that they were telling me to embrace the journey that I'm starting, and also wanted me to remember that they will always be there to support, love, and take care of me - if I ever needed it. Well this week they sure have supported, loved and taken care of me and my family more than I can ever remember. Thanks Mom and Dad!