Mudhens Field Day & Game

Given our love of baseball (or Timo's love), I knew we would be hitting a few Mudhen's games while in town.  When checking their website for schedules, I learned about the Muddy Kid's Club and all the perks that kids get.  One big one is Field Day at the ballpark where the kids get to explore and participate in the Mudhen's baseball. 

In addition to hanging out in the dugout, they got to have some batting practice in the batting cage.  Some parents were pretty serious, bringing their kid's own bat, batting gloves and helmets, WOW!  But we did just fine with what they provided and Timo even hit it way over the fence to the back wall! 

The children's were supposed to be able to run bases and play out on the field but Toledo was experiences one of the wettest summers on record and the field needed to be protected and readied for that evening's game.  So everyone was relocated to the outfield and surrounding area for catch...the kid's really didn't mind, just as long as they got to play on the field.

We also got to go to the broadcasting booth and be on Muddy TV!  Can you see Sena and Cameron on the scoreboard?

After a full day of playing we returned to the stadium for Muddy's birthday bash.  Along with cake and ice cream, he had 20 of his closest mascots attending and Cameron was intent on having her picture taken with each one. 

After having Muddy sign their baseballs, we were on a quest of mascots.  Most were from area sporting teams, hockey, arena football and basketball, but some were from local businesses.   We didn't get all 20 but we had fun trying!

Young showed up a little later with the rest of the family which turned out to be his parent's first baseball game!  I think it might have been everyone's first game...we had all the aunt's, uncles, cousins and 2nd cousins there...22 of the Ko family!

Picture perfect evening at the ball park topped off with such fun family times and cotton candy!  A funny story, we quickly realized the parent team of the Mudhens are the Detroit Tigers...whom the SF Giants beat in the World Series.  One field worker asked Timo who his favorite player was, fully expecting him to say a Detroit player.  When Timo busted out Matt Cain, the employee was quite offended and went on to inform us we were in Detroit Tiger territory.  Most was lost on the kids but we thought it funny how deep the team loyalties run.

New Wheels

Timo and Cameron had a new toy while in Ohio this visit...something that they would never be able to have while living in SF. We were at a neighbor's yard sale getting Cameron a little bigger bike for $5 when Harmony saw this Jeep for sale too. One thing to another, once the kids got in she just couldn't refuse. We wheeled and dealed and the kids rode home in their new (used) Jeep! Ah, suberbia life!

They ended up doing everything in that Jeep...using it to blow bubbles, eat snack, and countless adventures using their binoculars and weapons.  And I was pleasantly surprised how well they got along with taking turns driving.  I think they realized riding was just as much fun as being the driver.

It was sad to leave it when we came home but it will be waiting, full charged when we return next time!

Imagination Station

We couldn't let our Ohio time slip by without a trip to our favorite Children's Museum, Imagination Station.  We love this place!  And as luck would have it, we planned it on the only rainy/chilly day we had...but that also meant it was so so crowed.  But that didn't dampen our spirits...Cameron could hardly contain her excitement as we walked in and spotted Mr. T-Rex!

The new exhibit was GrossOlogy...all about the body.  I have to admit, some things were pretty gross, like climbing the wall of skin or the bodily noise maker, but some were pretty fun, like the giant operation game and the dust ball nose shooter!

We like the earthquake section...testing our California earthquake skills in standing and building on shaking ground...

The paper airplanes took by far the most time.  The plane instructions were really detailed and took us a long time to get them right, but it was worth it!  The plans flew with such ease into the target.

There were so many other things to see, we stayed for at least 4 hours!  Along with the water works (which I didn't take any pics because I was wet) our favs were the ball launcher and the magnetic wheel...trying to balance the magnet wheels to spin straight.

I didn't expect to stay that long and hadn't planned appropriately with snacks so we were all starving as we walked a few blocks to our favorite Chicago style deep dish pizza place.  I had the kids sold on the deep dish until our waitress mentioned kids could make their own pizzas.  Oh well, at least I got a deep dish.  Even though Timo ate most of the cheese for his pizza, he was pretty happy with the results...and Cameron ate ALL her pizza (Cameron never finishes all her food unless there is dessert involved), she must have made one awesome pizza!

First Day of Kindergarten!!

I know, I'm so behind in blogging, it's ridiculous. I have the remaining Ohio trip to post as well as some other activities once we got home to post but I didn't want this big day to slid by without documenting it. It was our first day of Kindergarten!! I know what you're thinking, "it's so early", but their school is a year round school, so summer is the beginning of the year. The kindergarten class goes two weeks of the summer session and we chose the last two weeks so we could spend more time in Ohio.  And now the big had has come and almost gone with much success.  Timo and Cameron handled it like pros, and they should be after two years of pre-k at CAIS.  But it's a new school, new teachers, new friends, you never know how thing will go. 

I took these this morning before we headed out...it was hard to focus through the tears in my eyes...

Our new school is just a block away so the kids can ride their scooters...making our commute time all of three minutes.  Love it!

The only bummer of the day was the kids aren't in the same class.  I requested several times for the same teacher but not so much.  The principle said I could submit a request form to have them moved, but they did so well in different classes, maybe I'll just leave it.  Neither Timo or Cameron seemed bothered by it so maybe they like having their own space and then coming together after school to share their adventures.  I'll keep you posted!

Bass Pro Shop Summer Camps

Being that I'm in love with "summer camps", I was so excited when I saw the Bass Pro Shop offering them. They have 30min little segments on a range of topics from bird watching to bebe gun shooting. We went on a Tues and planned on doing the bird watching, fishing, archery and camping...but only made it through two...fishing and archery. We got there too late for bird watching and didn't quite last for camping. But we had plenty of fun the 3 1/2 hours we were there!

The kids remembered being here last time and being able to climb in the boats, so that what we hit first while waiting on the fish camp to start.  I'm excited for the day when we can actually take them on a boat in the water and see what it's really like.

We met at the fish tank for our first camp.  Each child got a necklace with an card and then, upon completing each camp, gets a pin.  It would be cool to collect all the pins but that would be a whole lot of Bass Shop for me.  The fish camp was fun but a little out of my kids' realm.  They mostly talked about Lake Erie fish, of course, and Timo and Cameron are only really familiar with ocean fish.  But they did get to pet a perch.

We had 30mins till the next camp so we walked around the store some more, checking out all the outdoor...indoors.  The fish tank was a hit but not as much as the shooting range.  Timo is becoming quite a good shot (did I just say that??) and hit 3 of his 10 targets.  We spent a lengthy amount of time looking at guns, bow and arrows, fishing pole and the cute tents they set up in the stores.

We settled in for our archery camp and learned about safety which was awesome!  Some of the information was a little over their heads but they really enjoyed it and even got to try they hands at shooting after the class.

We tried killing more time around the store waiting for the camping series but we can only do so much in ATVs that don't move...

We were getting tired and hungry so we headed out to go home, deciding we would come back another day for the rest of the camps.  But we were met with fishing and more archery tests, and who are we to turn down a challenge.  The kids got to try their hands at casting...a first for them.  I'm bummed I didn't get a picture of what they were casting in...huge plastic large mouth bass!

Timo and Cameron weren't big enough but Sena was able to try the real bow and arrows.  She was a pretty good shot considering it was her first time....

So many more camps to come back for...I don't think this will be our only trip to the Bass Pro Shop on this vacation.