Strawberry Pickin'

We went strawberry picking with Miles' little preschool group a while back.  The weather was perfect for the occasion, which I was so thankful for.  It would get HOT and SWEATY in those open fields...  Thank heaven for clouds and breezes, right?

These are all the kids (minus one) we did the preschool co-op with.  It was a great little group!

Park Days

It's weird: when I look at older pictures like this, I feel the nostalgia my brain labels as summer.  Only they are pictures from January, February, March and April.  Backwards.

Park days are over.  A lot of days are almost over.  Miles starts school in 80 days.  80 DAYS!  We went to the Children's Museum yesterday for the last time before school gets out and it becomes wildly crowded.  I told Miles it might be the last time we go until all the kids go back to school.  And then I realized he's one of those kids that will go to school!  I can't believe how my cushy, simple little life where I can go wherever, whenever is totally, completely slipping through my fingers.  I want to barf.  

Take a moment, say goodbye to park days and "summer:"

Miles ran I don't know how many laps around this park...

And here he is, right before he slipped in that mud and biffed it.  He landed right in the mud and got it all over  the bum of his shorts.  And then I got him naked from the waist down at our car so he could sit on a towel and looked over to find a little girl having a staring contest.  Whoops, I guess he's too old for nudity these days!  So, say goodbye to that too.

Goodbye.

Take me out to the ball game

We hit up an Astros game back in April.  Somehow, some way, the Astros peeps got our number and invited us to tour the ball park before the game started.  I said, "How much does it cost?" the girl said, "It's free." and then I said, "Heck yes."

All ready to go cheer on those Astros:

The tour mostly consisted of all the different season ticket seats and special areas for fans who have mucho bucks and spend those mucho bucks at Minute Maid Park.  We saw executive offices and where the announcers sit and didn't have to wait in a huge line to be one of the first [insert number] of people to get the free bobble head.

The highlight of the tour was definitely getting to go right on the field during batting practice: 

It was only for about a minute, but it was still super cool.

After the tour, the girl hooked us up with great, close tickets.  Basically, it was the best free gig ever.

The game was definitely action packed.  The Indians scored like 8 runs in the first inning.  Needless to say, it was a looooong game and we had to leave early.  The final score of 18-6 didn't change, though, so we saw everything we needed to see.  Just as Miles changed his allegiance at the Avs v. Stars game, he ditched his Astros hat and rooted for those winning Indians all the way.  Fun times!

The Hockey Game

It was pretty much non-negotiable that we were going to go see the Avs play the Stars when they came to Dallas.  That day came in March.  We pulled a crazy one and drove up to Dallas and back down to Houston the same day so we wouldn't have to stay overnight.  Crazy, short traveling is the Lawson way!  I married a Lawson.

This was not Miles' first hockey game, but it was his first hockey game as a true fan.  He has been unbelievably into hockey this year.  Dave has an NHL app on the iPad and Miles watched the highlights from every game each day and plays hockey in almost all his spare time.  He matches up teams and covers all roles: announcer, referee, forwards/defenders and goalie.  He deals out penalties, reviews goals, pretends to take off his goalie mask and get a drink from his water bottle off the back of the net when the other team scores, has enormous victory celebrations (complete with giving knuckles to all the players on the bench [our couch]) when he scores, has overtimes and shoot outs and pretty much talks incessantly about the whole deal.  If you don't know anything about hockey, all of that means nothing to you.  If you do know hockey, I just painted a very small picture of what it's like.  IT'S UNREAL.  And a true passion.  So, needless to say, it was really fun and exciting to take him to a game.

We went early so we could watch the warm up.  You could just see the awe and wonder and joy all over his face.  It was great.

Nice spit-y, slobber-y, string-y kiss from Miles.  Yum!

 Hey that's me!  In a picture!

And there's me and Miles in a picture!  Amazing.

They're related.

Some old guy came down to the glass to watch the warm up and try to get a puck or two from the players.  He gave Miles some old hockey cards.  

Watching the warm up right on the glass is really fun.

The same old guy who gave Miles the hockey cards gave him a puck he got the players to throw over the glass!  Basically, Miles had an amazing hockey game and I hope he knows it.

He was pretty stoked.

After the warm up we went up, up, up to our seats.

The Avs played awful, lost, and when Dallas scored in the first minute of the game, Miles said to me, "Actually, I changeded my mind.  I'm rooting for Dallas because we are in Dallas."  So he cheered on the Stars while his parents cheered on the loser Avs.  It was super fun and I'm glad we can be a family of hockey fans!