Baseball Games, Golden Egg, Walks & First Bike Rides

It is no secret that this winter and spring have been long, cold and frustrating. Despite that, we have been able to make it outside a little bit and have taken in some more firsts for Isabel.

Isabel went to her first Twins game on April 23rd against the Indians. We purchased tickets through the MS Society which allowed us to parade around the warning track of Target Field before the game. It was a pretty cool view. The weather was not ideal, cloudy and cold, much like the rest of spring. However, Isabel must have brought the Twins some luck, as they pulled off a minor miracle and actually won. There haven't been too many W's so far this year. It was fun to make it to a game and hopefully we will make it to a couple more this year.

The Easter bunny found us the next day and left Isabel a basket full of goodies (her Papa Arlen sweetly made her a basket like her momma had growing up). Isabel's sweet tooth is still in full gear as she happily devoured her peeps and chocolate bunny.

In the afternoon we celebrated at Kerri's house with good food, good beer and a big Easter Egg hunt for the kids. Each grandchild was able to hunt for colored eggs with the grand prize being the golden egg. Can you guess who found it?



And what was in the elusive Golden Egg? A crisp $2 bill!

Isabel gets more and more confident walking every day and I think we can now officially call her a walker. This past weekend she made great progress and she now looks to walk before crawl. She is also able to stand up without pulling herself up on anything. The drunken sailor wobble is leaving and she is taking steps with more and more confidence every day. She should be running by next week...


And last but not least, Isabel got out for her first Strider ride this weekend. She is just a little bit short for it yet, but she loved being pushed around on it. She should be ready to do her own pushing sometime this summer.


Until next time!

Future Twin?

Elias made his Little League debut this year. This was from a game we went to back in June. Now I just need to talk him into being a catcher!

Elias Baseball 2010 from Jason Mousel on Vimeo.

Joe Who, Mascot What???

Somehow, Butter and I tend to end up by interesting people when we are out and about. If you have heard us tell the Denali bus trip story about our "friends" Ursala and Gordon or remember the Rally Cap guy from Game 163, those are some of the interesting people we are talking about. Well, last nights Twins game was no different.

Butter and I had bought tickets to the Twins game awhile ago believing it would be our first game together (Butter was fortunate enough to go to the Opener). We had gotten good seats down the third base line in the midst of the Hen House. What do I mean by the Hen House? I am talking about a flock of women who came to the game as a work outing and knew absolutely nothing about the Twins!

I kid you not, one of the women had no idea who Joe Mauer was...you have no business being at a Twins game (much less in the state of Minnesota) if someone has to point out who Joe is to you. The response from the other ladies was very matter-of-fact (which is also annoying), "He is the catcher, you know, behind home plate. He has a mask over his face so you can't see what he looks like." Oh my goodness...you have got to be kidding me!

So the hens keep clucking throughout the game and then we hear, "Who is that down there? It looks like a mascot." What she is asking about as you can see from the picture below is in fact: TC, the Twins MASCOT! Woman you are killing me!


She did, however, want to know if Butter was a professional photographer and if he had a website for his pictures. What, to buy pictures of a game you know nothing about?! Anyway, enough of my rant. Here are some of the "professional" pictures Butter got of the game.

Game 163

I sat in a "virtual waiting room", well actually 5, for 2 hours trying to get tickets to the Twins/Tigers game on Monday. I finally got in and requested 4 of the best available tickets and out popped Section 226, Row 26. That would put us exactly this close to the top of the dome...



Well, nose bleed tickets are better than no tickets! We surprised Kassi with an early birthday present, so her and Josh joined us for what a few people have called a pretty good game...





We were a long ways up, but the seats were still pretty good and with the help of super zoom it felt like we were right behind the plate.

Game 163 was easily the best game I have ever seen. As much as I despise the Dome and can't wait to watch a game outside in MN, it was pretty cool to see the place packed and absurdly loud.

The game had a little bit of everything: good pitching, homeruns, good defense, bone-head plays and rally hat guys...


Rally hat guy on the left was on his blackberry most of the night and rally hat guy on the right spent most of the time turning back towards us, looking desperately like he wanted to say something but never actually saying anything.

None the less their rally hats contained magic and the Twins did the unthinkable and clinched the division.

I am not a Twins fan, but this team is really hard not to like. Hopefully they continue to pull off the unthinkable.

P.S. If you are looking for a new beer to try look for New Belgium's Hoptober. Tasty.


Kati's side note:

This was easily the most exhausting athletic event I have been part of; yes, I said part of...if you were there you know that the crowd was definitely part of this win. After the 6th inning it was pretty much sitting until the first batter of the Tigers had two strikes and then standing until the end of the bottom of the inning. If you are or have been pregnant you understand the complete exhaustion that goes along with it...the game was 4 1/2 hours and standing for 4 hours is not something I plan to do again during this pregnancy! Mufasa was quite the trooper, though, I didn't start feeling a sore and like I didn't have anything left until at least the 10th inning.