Take me out to the

We had a nice treat this week with the visit of cousin Katie.

We seem to have something of a family tradition, the the 13 year trip. I went to Kansas. Shawn and Katie came up to Maryland. It is a good idea. I want to do the same with my kids. Heads up Kathryn: how about a Japan trip?

To give mom a bit of a break from all her hard work taking the kids and Katie about (they went to the Smithsonian see above), I got her a PaintNite.

Several people from my work have done this and the groupon deals make it all quite reasonable.

So I packed mom off to a Seafood/Irish place to try her hand at art with a dash of stout.

I think she had a good time. I would like to take David out for the same sort of evening soon.

I went out early in the week to the keys stadium to get a special pack of tickets and meal deals for a Cub Scout camp out.

Later in the week I took Cousin Katie out for a night on the town.

She is very into all things Japan but particularly Manga and Anime. I took her to a big Asian grocery store to pick up snacks to match her viewing ideals. We found some candy and some dumplings and some rice cakes and some can coffee. Then we headed off to a sushi/habachi place.

I took pictures of her snapchatting and felt very ironical and Gen X.

For our work Thursday picnic we wound up at a small local ice cream place. They had a field of sunflowers out back and for a donation to their charity of choice we got to pick a sunflower.

Driving through the farmland and eating the great ice cream and staring at my sunflower (thanks Krishna!) made time warp in this excellent way. The spinning hamster wheel of work isn't usually much of an issue in my work life but getting away from everything expected and finding such treats feels so important. I am quite grateful for how things are in my life just now.

We went to Scearce's to pick up some bamboo poles and to visit.

They were feeling slightly unsteady up the hill and held each other for support. This holding hands and helping each other thing got me.

I have been looking at this picture and remembering that in a few weeks Kathryn will be here with Erena.

This is us in High School sitting on the roof of my great Chevy Vega.

On Saturday we went to the Keys stadium for Scout Night Out.

Kiernan and some other kids from Pack 1191 carried our banner around the field.

Then we watched a very high scoring but ultimately losing game of baseball.

It was loud and being in a group as we were with other families from our pack afforded an opportunity to be boisterous and jockish and many things that I am not naturally but was very pleased to expose Kiernan to.

Megs only made it for a few innings but Kiernan and I were there to stay.

We watched the post game fireworks. He even went down and ran the bases.

Then they kicked us out to get our tents.

We came back in and ate snacks and watched a movie under the stars. We saw the Good Dinosaur.

He had a few moments of being over whelmed by the noise or the crowed but very few of those and despite the very late hour (especially for a boy whose bed time is 8 o'clock) he fell to sleep happy and work bright eyed at 545 the next morning.

I was completely zonked but am quite glad we did it.