Baseball Carnival

The day after Derek got home was the Christian Center Baseball Awards and Carnival.

Derek was the only one of the Cubs' coaches that was able to make it, so he got to hand out all the awards and medals.

Owen found ways to occupy himself, but none of them included sitting still.

Cooper got a medal for participating, and another for saying all his memory verses during the season.  In fact, all the boys from Cooper's team that were there had said all their verses.  Good job, boys!

After the awards portion of the morning, we headed out to the carnival.

There was, of course a baseball game.

That both boys wanted to try.

And also a basketball game.

There was also inflatable jousting!  We were waiting in line when there was someone at the front that needed a partner.  So Miles jumped up there and jousted with a new friend. 

While Cooper and his friend, Zach, waiting and jousted each other.

After some waiting in line again, Cooper and Miles took on each other.

The big brother won, as it should be? 

Actually, most of their dual was spent with Miles getting his helmet put back on.  As you'll see in the video.  Miles also claimed he only lost because it was so hot to stand on that.  :)

Owen watched from the dirt...

Derek had volunteered to be in the dunk tank, but the tank got broken in transit and he got out of it.  He did end up doing a shift running the optical course instead though.  While he was doing that, I heard someone behind me say, "Amy Bauer?".  I turned to find a friend we knew in Wichita in high school! His wife has an Aunt in Peoria, and her cousin played baseball for Christian Center.  They were visiting and came to the carnival with them.  Derek & Tim played quite a few years of basketball together on the homeschool team.  So, that was fun to catch up!

After I took the previous photo, I walked over to see Miles going down the slide.   With a sucker!   It wasn't in his mouth (Thankfully!) but I couldn't believe someone let him on there with it! Ha.

There were more games...  like this one where you stomp a fish into the penguin's basket.  Miles looks a bit confidant here, and he was.  As he waited in line, he told me, "I'm good at this, I'll get it right away.".  And he did. :)

There was also a radar gun so the boys could see how fast they pitch.

I was surprised that Miles wasn't all that much slower than Cooper.

But not at all surprised to soon find Owen had fallen asleep in his stroller.

We ended the fun with some food.  Derek had earned a free meal for volunteering.