Downtown. For once, the temperatures around here have dropped below 100 degrees. Friday night was beautiful outside. I mean absolutely beautiful. And I wanted to get out. of. my. house. And to some place other than the park. I like the park. Just was tired of it. So we headed downtown. They have a sculpture walk and Brooks has been interested lately in statues. So that was fun for him. They also had some live musicians along the sidewalks. We learned that Brooks has no problem with a guy and a guitar but four saxophone players are somehow frightening. Who knew. Then we walked to the toy store, which to my surprise was open at 7:00 at night. So we went inside and played with balls and scooters and trucks. I love Child's Play Toys!
Juggling. Chris heard on the radio that the World Juggling Federation was having their annual conference right here in Sioux Falls. Juggling is fun. So we decided to go! (Random, right??) They had events going on all week, but Saturday night there was an event called "Juggling Games". We had no idea what that meant, but it sounded fun and it was free. So we went! Immediately upon arrival we realized that these "juggling games" were not necessarily meant to be a spectator event. Because there were quite literally eight other people there. All of which I guessed to be parents of the teenage jugglers below and they all apparently were familiar with each other. We received many "who are these people?" looks. We were the outsiders. We sat down anyway.
And within a few minutes we learned what "juggling games" were. A group of teenagers (mostly boys) were gathered with all of their juggling apparatus. I'm guessing they all participated in the workshops during the week. And over the course of the next hour a gentleman set up different challenges and competitions for them to complete. Some for prizes, some not. They were not professional jugglers, but when the "easy" challenge was "Whoever juggles 5 balls the longest, wins" ... we knew they would be good. And they were. It was actually really fun to watch. They juggled 5 balls. Then 7 balls. Then 5 clubs. They juggled on chairs. They juggled in pairs. They threw them in the air. They juggled on stairs. (Ok, not really on stairs. I got caught up in the rhyming. Sorry.) Brooks watched for the whole hour! Carter "watched" for 10 minutes. All in all. A pretty fun event for a Saturday night.
Baseball.
Brooks completed the library's reading challenge this summer and one of his prizes was a pair of tickets to the Sioux Falls Fighting Pheasants. Never heard of 'em? Don't feel bad. They're a (very) minor league baseball team and they're not very good. But Brooks was excited to go see baseball guys and Chris was excited to take his boy to a ball game. So Sunday night they donned their baseball caps and sweatshirts (it was pretty cool and rainy) and headed to the ballpark. Chris said Brooks sat through a whole inning! That's not too bad for a three year old. He was, of course, asking for food the whole time but Chris made him sit for at least one inning :) After that they bought hot dogs, chips and lemonade (which Brooks promptly spilled) for "dinner" and watched some more baseball. They wandered around the park for a while and then headed home.
Chris and I have both learned to temper our expectations when it comes to these kinds of events. If you go thinking you're going to sit and watch a whole baseball game, you will be sorely disappointed. Life with little kids just doesn't afford you those kinds of opportunities. But I was proud of Chris because he went and just enjoyed the experience of being at the game with Brooks ... of spending time with his son - even though they didn't see much actual baseball. (But remember that they're not any good, so it wasn't a huge loss :)
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| Brooks hangin' with the pheasant!! |
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