baseball – Page 2 – Lemon Drop Pie

There’s nothing better than a road trip to kick off summer! Last Friday, Ed came home at noon and the girls had an early dismissal from school, so we loaded up the minivan and drove to Des Moines. When Ed mentions that we’re headed to Iowa, people ask why. The simple reason is that my dad and step-mom live there. However, we are really glad to have an excuse to go to Des Moines. It has all the advantages of a big city without all the traffic. And most of the downtown parking is FREE! If you’ve ever parked your car in downtown Chicago, you know this is a BIG DEAL!

Road Trip with Kids — Not my minivan, and not Des Moines, either!

We love going to an Iowa Cubs game when we’re in town, and this year, we did it right. My dad has always wanted to rent a skybox, and this year he took the plunge and splurged on one! The ballpark is right where the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers meet. The skybox could fit up to 20 people, so my step-mom’s family came along with some family friends.

Lily loves watching the game with Ed, but Emmy was concerned about only one thing: how was she going to get her cotton candy if we weren’t sitting in the stands? She even took a picture of the cotton candy man with my phone!

Emmy didn’t need to worry; one of the cotton candy vendors came up to the skyboxes selling cotton candy door-to-door. That’s Emmy’s kind of service! We also had a personal visit from the Cubby Bear.

But what about the game? If you’ve never been to a minor league game, they are a lot of fun. There are a lot of activities to keep the kids entertained; they shoot T-shirts out of a cannon and have other things to watch in between innings. Principal Park is such a nice stadium. Of course, we love Wrigley Field, but it’s not as clean and kid-friendly as Principal Park. As for the game itself, the ICubs scored a lot of points and won!

What a great way for us to kick off summer! How are you kicking off summer? Link up your post here, and be sure to visit our other Spinners!

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Next week: Summer Reruns During the summer months, most television shows are reruns. Share some of your favorite TV shows that you love watching, even in reruns OR “rerun” one of your favorite blog posts from the past!

The Cubs lost on Sunday. To Cub fans like my husband, this was not surprising. We were at the game hoping that they might be able to win it, but they lost to the Milwaukee Brewers 3-1. We didn’t know many of the players, since the Cubs have traded a lot of their well known players mid season. Ed made sure to quiz me on the retired Cub numbers, though; #26, #23, #14, #10….

It was a great game for several other reasons. Lily and Emmy received a Cubs chest protector pack. It’s like a backpack, only you wear it on the front like an umpire or a catcher. They loved throwing their peanut shells on the ground. They learned how to be part of a crowd wave. These are all important things for little Cub fans to learn how to do.

And they went to a Cubs game with their die-hard Cub fan Daddy. Ed made sure we got to Wrigley Field early so that the girls could get their special orange wristbands. The first 1,000 kids with a wristband got to run around the bases at the end of the game. That is a lot of kids, but the people working after the game to get us into line assured the parents that it would go fast. Once the kids started running around the bases that line moved really fast!

Since the girls were able to go run the bases, as their dad, Ed was able to walk on the actual baseball field for the first time and see the ivy walls up close. After being a fan since he was a kid, that was pretty thrilling!