Kieran Actually Played a Baseball Game

Tuesday night, Kieran had another game scheduled, this time in Delano.  Which meant that I had to leave school, pick up the kids, feed them and get Kieran back to Delano (within 500 yards of my classroom) within a couple of hours.  Plus, Luke had ComboBall practice the same night (although it was apparently cancelled because of impending storms that never really materialized) --- Sarah has class Tuesday nights this summer and both Kieran/Luke have ball most of those nights...it's going to be interesting how it all works out...

Driving to Delano that night it just got darker and darker the farther north we got.  Here's a picture of the sky shortly before the start of the game...

Luckily, the storms just missed Delano to the south...meaning the game would go on...

Kieran learned some good lessons that night...some I thought he already knew...the first at-bat he came up swinging....a little early on this pitch...

Eventually he got the count to one ball and two strikes.  At which point I think he was scared of striking out, so he attempted a bunt on the next pitch...

Well, the bunt went foul and if that happens with two strikes, you're out.  I hoping he doesn't try to bunt without being told to again...

He played a few outfield positions too....

His second time up to the plate he tapped the ball right in front of the plate and was thrown out at first.  The third time up, he came out swinging again, but struck out...it's going to happen.

His team though was winning 7-0 at one point.  Too bad the rains didn't come...they ended up losing 14-8....

Kieran's Baseball

Kieran's been practicing for over a month now - it's about two practices a week, two hours at a time.  He's had 2-3 games postponed because of rain and multiple practices also rained out.  Tonight was the first night that the game was postponed before we had to leave...

He's excited, it's the first season of 'kid pitch' and he has a whole uniform.  With the weather tonight, it looked like it would be close whether we would get the game in or not...

 While the kids were warming up, 10 minutes before the game, the first lightning bolt struck.  All the kids were removed from the field for a time to wait things out....eventually they started the game though.  They made it through 1 1/2 innings before the next bolts of lightning, though they finished the next 1/2 inning before this happened...

Maybe it's hard to see...but that's a deluge all over the field.  Ponding water everywhere...eventually the postponed the game until June 28th.  We'll see what the weather will be like then...

Best part --- Kieran didn't start the game and wasn't going to enter the game until the 3rd inning...we drove to Winsted just to watch some weather....Lexy was able to make her entire practice though back in Cologne (not of drop of rain)....

Twins Baseball Clinic

A couple of days ago, Kieran had the opportunity to participate in a baseball clinic at Target Field (home of the Twins) that was being put on by the Minnesota Twins and Suburban Chevrolet.  It was almost three hours of drills at somewhere between 10-15 stations.  He went in both dugouts and even went up towards the visitors clubhouse where they saw the indoor batting cage and they even got a free lunch.  But, most of the time was spent on the field --- I've never been on that field, that would be cool....

It was hard to get pictures of Kieran doing the drills, here's one where he's working on fly balls...

Kieran is somewhere in that group across the infield (btw...the seats down low are cushioned...they were nice)...

And another one where they were doing some stretching...though if you knew Kieran as a baby, he was better at this superman position then (he would lift both his arms and his legs off the ground all the time)....

What it really did was give us time to explore the outside of Target Field...like the Gold Glove...

Or the Kirby Puckett statue representing Game 6 of the '91 Series...

Or Harmon Killebrew...

After watching Luke at the Rod Carew statue, I'm wondering if he should bat left-handed?

TC Bear anyone?

What Luke really wanted though was to get on the big screen.  He and I moved to the right field corner when Kieran was coming around and there just happened to be a camera guy on the field then...

The camera guy noticed Luke at the rails, motioned to me to get my camera ready, and....

Luke was happy...later - Luke, Lex and Sarah all made the jumbotron....

It was a great day, especially since it was free...everyone had fun!

'The Boot'

I mentioned in a few posts back - about the Hot Dash 10 Mile - that I hurt my calf two days before that race, so I couldn't run....I did drive Sarah and Pam down and cheered them on though...

I hurt it while substitute teaching for a PE teacher.  His lesson plan was to play 'Line Soccer', which involved basically jogging.  I run 25-30 miles a week and the teams were uneven...so I played (I play every time I sub for PE)....

Near the end of the game, while jogging (I wasn't touched, sprinting, accelerating, etc.) my right calf felt like I was hit by a baseball.  I first thought my phone fell out of my pocket and hit my calf, but no....the next step hurt...big time.  Honestly, it scared me some...

Spring break came two days later and I took it easy for the first six days.  I hobbled around a bit for those days, but by Wednesday of break, I started running again.  It was slow going...at least a minute per mile slower than I'm used to, probably more.

But for the next two weeks I was back to running 25-30 miles per week, albeit, at a much slower pace...I'm running Grandmas Marathon again this summer so I have a goal, a schedule and a timeline I need to keep...

Which brings us to this past Saturday where I was running the Goldy's 10 mile run.  I made it 5.5 miles through the run (at a faster pace than I had been doing the last two weeks or so) and BOOM my calf seemed to be hit by a baseball again (right in the middle of a bridge over the Mississippi River).  I was done.  I hobbled another 3/4 mile to some buses that could take me to the start line.

I went to Twin Cities Orthopedic Urgent Care the next day.  They took a few X-rays...no stress fracture and the achilles seems to be intact.  It's probably a partially torn calf muscle...

Which means...I get this...

Until at least a followup appointment on April 19....

I've been pretty good at wearing it the last two days.  I don't wear it while driving (it's too wide) or while lifting weights in the morning (too sweaty), but I wear it during school all day (which brings a lot of questions) and most of the time while at home.

Basically the doctor said if I continued with what I was doing, I would completely tear the muscle long before the marathon....

I'm listening...I'll wear it until Tuesday...hopefully not longer....

Minnesota Zoo

The kids are on spring break this week, so I took a personal day so they could do something fun besides going to daycare (or in Kieran's case, stay at home playing playstation).  Two of the three wanted to go to the zoo and weather forecast looked like today would be the best day of the next four or five days, so we went to the zoo....

About that weather forecast...the 30% chance of rain turned into steady rain until almost 1:15 (we got to the zoo at 9:40 and it was not raining when we left Cologne).  The picture above?  That was the most sun we saw and it was as we were leaving...

Rain or no rain, there's still plenty to do at the zoo.  Like take a look at the Hawaiian Monk Seals...

There are five of them at the zoo, but only one was out in the main tank.  We learned later they prefer to be on their own...

Weather forecast said 50 degrees, but when it was raining, it was well below that....so we headed for the tropics!  At least the tropic trail where Luke & Lex found the Komodo Dragon just hanging out...

Kieran preferred to be at a little bit of a distance from his siblings, but still likes the dragon...

Although, I'm pretty sure the dragon would prefer all of us were gone...

Along the tropic trail, we watched a very active gibbon/lemur/monkey (the kids would correct me) for a long time...Luke said he was just trying to show off....

Lex wanted a picture of the Flamingos...so we got a picture of a Flamingo...

On the Minnesota Trail, I don't ever remember being this close to the Mountain Lions or Cougars or Pumas (whatever you'd like to call them), they weren't active, just trying to avoid the rain...

Kieran's favorite animal at the zoo is the Penguins from South Africa, I just wasn't able to get a good picture of Kieran and a penguin.  So here's Lex and an adult...

At that point, it was go home or go outside....rain or no rain....there was a vote to go home, but we went outside (it wasn't a heavy rain at that point)...

On the Russian Coast trail section we found the leopard hanging close to the glass....apparently cats don't like the water...

The tiger was different though...it was out pacing and growling (that may have been because of the rain)..

The Takins didn't care one bit about water falling from the sky...

The Wild Horses from China thought it was the best time - the kids thought they were playing tag...

I'm not too sure what the camels thought about it though...

We went back to the Brown Bears before we left because the sun was coming out.  The bears were enjoying lounging in the sun and I liked this picture...

As we walked out I took this picture (I do like pictures of people in front of signs) and it looks like the weather was fantastic.  It wasn't, but the kids had fun...

Fort Snelling State Park

The kids didn't have school on Friday and the weather wasn't that bad, so the four of us took off to Fort Snelling State Park for a little hiking.  We were going to hike the trail that goes around Pike Island, it is a 3 mile trail, plus another half mile or so to get to the island.  I bet we hiked a minimum of four miles that day.

Kieran really enjoys reading signs or interpretive centers, Luke can usually get the gist of the sign before one of us reads it to him.  Here there learning about why there is a large Minnesota river valley, why there's a Mississippi river gorge up until St. Anthony falls and why there are a series of waterfalls in the area.

But mostly our hikes end up something like this...both boys acquire sticks to be used occasionally as walking sticks, but more often than not, as guns...

And any bench we find?  Luke will immediately call for a rest...

If they can find a large stump to climb on, even better...

I'm the one who makes them stand at places like this - a marker showing past flood years on the rivers...

All along the Minnesota river side of the island we saw lots of evidence of beavers.  So we had lots of talks beavers and 'beaver marks' as Kieran called them.  Luke wanted to see a beaver, Lex wanted to pet one...

At the halfway point of the hike we came to the sign that we look for as part of the hiking club.  It gives us the password that we need to record.  Every 25 miles we get a patch, as of right now, we've hiked over 15 miles of trails as part of the hiking club.  (No, we not going to show you the password)...

We spent a lot of time here (there were at least 3 benches) exploring the confluence of the Minnesota river and the Mississippi river...

I visited the area the day before, taking a walk on a path overlooking the confluence of the rivers from the Minnesota side.  It's pretty hard to miss the Minnesota, being filled with sediment from upstream.  The Mississippi has much less sediment.  Lake Pepin downstream is being filled in by the sediment coming from the Minnesota.  Studies have repeatedly showed that the filling in of Lake Pepin has accelerated after Europeans came to the area.  The cause is all the fields that are tiled, as water is quickly drained from the fields, it's taken to the Minnesota river valley and quickly erodes the valley walls itself.  That sediment heads straight for the river.

On the Mississippi river side, there are lots of large trees with cavities you can walk into.  I posted a few last August too...

Back at the visitor center, we finally found the beaver, well Lex did and she couldn't even pet it...

A pretty decent, and tiring day...

Easter Egg Hunting

This morning was the local Easter Egg hunt and the kids and I went down to participate - well, they did the participating while I took the pictures.  There were lambs and goats to pet and of course we needed to have a picture with the Easter bunny (Lex was really excited for that, the boys, not as much)...

Lex's turn came first, here she is at the start of hunt, on the right side (wearing her traditional pink)...

She took off and started getting eggs, though most of the kids went as far as possible, Lex stayed close.  Here's her action shot, as she tried to catch up with the rest...

This year, Luke and Kieran were in the same age bracket (Luke was a little hesitant about being in the same group as the bigger kids), but it went fine.  Here they are lined up at the beginning...

They both had two very different strategies - Kieran's was to run as far and fast as possible, to get out in front of the group, while Luke stayed back near the beginning picking up all the eggs the others ran over.  Here's an action shot of Luke...

And an action shot of Kieran -- much farther away though...

At the end, they had to take all the candy (or money) out of the eggs and here are their spoils...

Not a bad morning...