Afternoon at the K

For Zac's birthday present, we decided to have an "experience" instead of a present. So Scott had promised Zac a Royals game. But just before Scott bought the tickets for this Friday, Uncle Michael called and offered us four tickets for the Sunday game! He is very sweet to call us often when he has extra tickets--this time, he was headed for France and couldn't very well see the game from the Arc de Triomphe (I had to look that up). So we decided to put the money we would have spent on tickets towards some of the "extras" at the ballpark--namely, a real ballpark snack that everyone could enjoy and fun at the new K kids' area. Even better, we found out Zack Greinke was pitching for the Royals. Apparently, that is a big deal.

We ate our lunch on the way and arrived at the ballpark with about 20 minutes to spare. Since some of us hadn't seen the re-vamped stadium, we took a walk over to the fountain wall and looked out over the ballpark. We took a picture of the kids by George Brett's statue, then hurried to our seats as the color guard marched out. I took great pleasure in showing little Blane how to remove his hat during the national anthem and place his hand over his heart. Then it was, "Play ball!"

The game was actually pretty good for the first 4 innings, as the Royals and White Sox stayed neck-in-neck with four runs each. It was a perfect American day--a beautiful sky, everyone in ball caps and Royals shirts, the smell of fried funnel cakes and other delicious goodies wafting around. I was in a sleeveless shirt at the loveliest of temperatures holding a little boy and watching America's pasttime with my favorite guys. It doesn't get much better than that.

We ordered peanuts (Seth's favorite) and got the guy to throw the bag to us. Seth sat next to me and crunched like a squirrel while I held a couple of shelled peanuts under Blane's nose for his perusal. "Try it; it tastes like peanut butter, " I urged. He did, but decided the two nuts I had given him were enough. Then he got restless, so after the 4th inning, we decided to head to the fun zone.

Scott got a handful of tokens and we started with miniature golf. Scott had to show Zac and Seth how to hold the golf club properly, and the guys did pretty well. Zac even got a hole-in-one on one of the runs! It wasn't a full scale course--just about six holes, but the guys loved it. Then Zac "ran the base" and compared his time with a sample Royals player. Next Blane rode the carousel, which he just loved. The boys wanted to go do the batting cages next, so I took Blane to the play area and we rode the carousel one more time. We got off just in time to see Z & S take to the batting cages. By then, everyone was getting hot and tired, so after one more run of the bases for both boys (to use up our tokens), we headed back to our seats. Fortunately, we were now at the 7th inning stretch. When we got back to our seats, the people behind us told us that the boys would have been on the Jumbotron if we had stayed there, because a cameraman had pointed in our direction. Bummer. Imagine our delight when a cameraman came down and sat near us again. Next thing you know, Zac was 7 stories tall on the "Flex Cam", showing off his muscles (with his younger brother popping his head in on the side of the screen) What a great birthday present!

We left at the bottom of the ninth after the Royals pitcher allowed 3 runs in, bringing the score to 7-4. Seth had a headache and Blane was miserable by that point. But Zac was so happy. What a wonderful way to celebrate 10 years on the earth!