More from the ball game

Just give me the ball...

I won tickets through work to go to see the Milwaukee Brewers play the Houston Astros at Miller Park in Milwaukee. Since there were only two tickets I had to make a quick decision about who to take. I couldn't take Lacey because it was too late for us to make arrangements for Peyton and Reagan. I could have called up one of my guy friends, but it was so last minute I didn't want to do that either (guys, feel free to let me know if I should have called and I'll keep you in mind next time an opportunity like this comes up). That left me with the option of taking one of my children.


I couldn't very well choose one child over the other, so we used the process of elimination. We would ask each child if they wanted to go, not telling them whether we actually had the tickets. If they both wanted to go, I was going to just give the tickets back and let someone else go. However, if one of them did not want to go, then I would take the other. Peyton wasn't interested, and Reagan was, so I had a date for the evening.




We arrived at the ballpark about two hours before game time. There was a private meeting room available for us until the game started. We ate a quick dinner and went out to explore. Reagan was intrigued by a large slide in left field. Unfortunately, it was not a kid's attraction, so we had to find something else to do. I bought souveniers for her and Peyton (seen in the picture) and we walked from end to end around the concourse. We settled into our seats and I warned Reagan that it was possible that a ball might come our way.


It turns out that I was prescient. Hunter Pence, the second batter, fouled a ball off into our section. It was a high pop-up and immediately the ball scavengers were hovering toward our row. I stood up and instinctively grabbed Reagan to protect her against the inevitable scrum pile that was soon to occur. As I did that, the ball bounced on the floor and landed right in our laps. I handed the ball to her and the crowd (in our section) cheered. Unfortunately, it didn't happen exactly that way.


I think (but I can't prove it) that I made some move toward protecting Reagan, but it was also designed to get me a better angle at the ball. It did land about two seats away from her, but also in the row behind her. Those seats were empty, so it was a free for all to get the ball. Seeing the ball on the ground, I dove over my seat reaching my hand out for the ball. As my hand was gripping the ball I felt a dull pain in my left eye. Oh yes, there are seats here, strategically placed approximately eighteen inches behind the row in front of them. That's what I think I hit. It didn't really hurt that much, and Reagan was happy to have the ball, so I just resumed watching the game. It wasn't until I got home that I noticed the bruising around my eye. I took a picture so you can see the badge of courage that I now wear (and to absolve Lacey from any responsibility for the mark).


I thought for sure that Reagan would fall asleep on the bus ride home, but she was so excited about everything that happened that she kept talking the whole way home. Then again, maybe she wasn't so much excited as she was juiced up from the cotton candy.

The Break In

This morning I prepared a letter to send to Acres of Hope with certified copies of our homestudy. I was just thinking how this is the last "thing" we have to do, and now it is just a matter of waiting and writing checks so that we can get our referral.

As I was getting into my car I heard a voice call out "Hello". Now this was at 7 a.m. I wondered who would be in my driveway at that time of day. It turned out to be an officer with the Boone County Sheriff's department. He said that someone reported a possible B&E at my address.

I knew that I hadn't reported anything, and Lacey was up in the living room looking to see which museum to take the kids to today. I told him I didn't call and that it was unlikely that a neighbor would call. I didn't see anything missing (of course, if it was missing, I wouldn't see it, would I?) He radioed back to his dispatcher and asked what was going on. Then he asked me if I was missing my passport. I opened my car (which was parked in the garage all night) and could not find the portfolio that I kept my passport in. I told him that the vehicle was in the garage all night. We did have a mini van parked in the driveway. Somehow that vehicle was unlocked. (duh duh duuuuh)

We glanced in the vehicle and noticed that the garage door opener was gone. (duh duh duuuh) The officer radioed for a detective. The only item missing was my passport, but that had been recovered. That's how the officer knew to come to me. Now, that's service. I have something stolen and the police report it to me instead of the other way around.

At that point the detective arrived and we tried to think of things that were missing. We had two Sirius radios that were still in the car (and they would have been easy to snatch). The girls had a portable DVD player, and it was still there. Lacey looked in the Explorer for her cell phone and realized that it was tucked safely in her purse. Unfortunately, her purse was in the Explorer, "was" being the operative word. Now we were really missing some things. Lacey's driver's license, checkbook, wallet, social security card, and credit cards were all gone.

The officers advised me to call the credit card companies. I did that right away. We learned that at least two of the cards had been used between 6 and 7 a.m. Wow, these guys move quickly.

The detective dusted for prints and took the information we had on the cards being used. I'm not too worried about any charges coming my way since we notified the credit card companies early on. Lacey's cell phone is turned off (and she's wondering about getting the new iPhone now). The damage thus far is minimal, aside from the horrible feeling of being violated, and the concern that they may have our garage door opener. We're going to look into changing the code on that right away.

At one point there were four police cars in front of our house. I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what was going on. They came out as soon as the officers left and we filled them it. I'm sure people will be keeping their eyes open now, but it's unlikely that they'll come back here.

In the mean time, I've been advised to close my checking account. That means I need to contact my mortgage company, employer, and numerous other online vendors to notify them of the account change. I know it could have been much worse, so I'm thankful that this was the extent of the damage. In the mean time, I'll start making phone calls.

Peyton's Magical Debut

School's out

Peyton and Reagan finished their first (and possibly their last) complete year at Seth Whitman Elementary School in Belvidere. They both did very well and enjoyed the experience. I loved their teachers and appreciated the hard work and dedication that these teachers displayed throughout the year.

Still, it may very well be their last year because we have made the decision to home school the children next year. There are a number of reasons for this, but the primary one is that we believe that the education of our children (teaching them) is our responsibility. Certainly a parent can use the public, or a private, school system to accomplish this purpose. For us, the mandate to teach our children extends beyond what they learn in the classroom, and in order to ensure that the values that we are trying to teach at home are not contradicted during the hours that they are in school, we decided to combine the two...hence, home-school. Pray for us, as this is a big step and we need God's grace to be successful in this endeavor (as we do for every endeavor we undertake.)