The Conquest

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Benson Baseball Adventure

In the words of Blake…

The boys and I made our annual pilgrimage to St. Louis in June. We not only get guy time, but also give Mom a break back in Kansas. Braden and Mason have been every year since each was one. Considering we come from a long line of Benson Cardinals fans, I'm proud to do my part in making sure this tradition continues! 

While in St. Louis, I had the chance to catch up with a great friend while introducing the boys to a new one. Here, Braden and Mason pose with Teegan, who was kind enough to share all of her games, gadgets and pool with the boys.

 

Old friend (literally) Jeff Callahan and wife, Tonya, who are expecting their first boy in August. Thanks again to both of them for putting up with the Bensons.

 

Considering Jeff and I have known each other since kindergarten, we bored the kids with lots of stories about how awesome we were "back in the day."

A trip to St. Louis isn't complete without a trip to the zoo, the best way to kill a day for around $8. Here, the boys pet quite possibly the largest sting ray I've ever seen. As you can see, Braden is ignoring the commands of the zookeeper by grabbing the animal's wings. Pretty smart.

 

They almost fell in trying to grab the shark, but fortunately ran out of time before it happened.

 

Getting set to enjoy one of the hottest games in recent memory...actual temperature of 106 at game time.

The St. Louis Fire Department kept our boys nice and cool!

2012 National League All-Star Lance Lynn was the pitcher for our second game. After his warm-ups, the catcher tossed the practice to Braden for a souvenir.

 

One of the best parts of the trip was that Braden and Mason had the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Pujols, Holliday, Beltran and others by running the bases at Busch Stadium. Always one to push his luck, Mason was asking me here if he could also run through the sprinklers in the outfield. I told him that if he wanted to check the reflexes of the Busch Stadium security team, to be my guest.

 

This will likely be the last time Braden gets to cross the plate at Busch until he joins the club as a rookie in about fifteen years.

Pittsburg Raildogs

 After the undefeated regular season, a new machine pitch traveling team was formed. Braden is going to be gone most of the weekends in July, but was still asked to join. They played a scrimmage game on Thursday and their first tournament this weekend. Although they lost both games yesterday, it has been a great experience. Apparently yesterday was just for ranking the teams, so the actual tournament was today.

 They won their first game, but lost the second, although Braden played a better game the second time around. As hot as it was for the spectators I cannot imagine what it was like for these boys to be on the field in this heat. Everyone was sharing their shade tents and I even grabbed two coolers of ice, one for the dugout and one for the siblings to cool off with.

 Braden struck out twice and had two nice hits, but both were caught in the air.

Happy Birthday USA

  Once again, we were honored to celebrate our nation's birthday at the neighborhood 4th of July parade. I'm happy to add this is the 33rd annual parade, and we have had the pleasure of attending three of these. Check out 2008, 2010, and 2011 here. Unfortunately we missed 2009 because of the rain.

This was Dash's first parade, and we invited some new friends who just moved to Pittsburg. Jacqueline and Charlie were able to experience the charm of this event!

Gone Fishin'

Thanks to Nan & Pop, the boys got new fishing poles and tackle for their birthdays. This was a few weeks ago, when I was on my way back from NYC, but Blake took them (and Dash) to try them out!

 Waiting.....

Think I've got one....

 Reel 'em in slow!