Fort Clifton Festival

Because its just not a party without civil war displays/references or tables of confederate pride. The festival was basically a smaller version of the Boise Art in the Park, so I enjoyed it.





They had fun things for the kids to do too... like participate in a judo expo. Coryn enjoyed it. Carter stood there, then calmly walked off the stage not sure what everyone was doing.


He did decide to put his hands in his pockets while he watched though.














There were also pony rides. Fun!

Strawberry fields

He's all excited to pick strawberries, he loves strawberries. We went picking in May, when it was just starting to feel warm. beautiful.













Big plants, big strawberries, where to start?














Here's one! He was actually pretty good at picking out good berries.









Here's some more for you!












Let me put them in my bucket! I know what you're thinking... where are the pictures of him gulping them down?? well, he only bit two... apparently sun warmed fresh picked strawberries just aren't his cup of tea... thats okay, mom ate enough for him :)

The Old Ball Game

The last time we were in Boise we took the boys to a Hawks baseball game. Coryn really seemed to enjoy himself so I decided that it would be fun to take him to professional game up at Camden Yards in Baltimore, home of the Orioles.

I love baseball. It ranks right up there with college football as my favorite sport (if you're one of those baseball haters out there who think the game is too slow, boring, uninteresting, etc then you don't understand the sport and all the strategy that goes into it. If you're indifferent about the game... meh). I hadn't been to a professional game in about 20 years so I figured that it was definitely time to do something about that. I wanted to go to a game where my team, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (the team so great that two cities want to claim them), was playing, or Coryn's team, the New York Yankees (don't ask) was playing but my wokr schedule didn't allow for that but I was able to get in choice number three, the Boston Red Sox.

We've made some friends up here who are big BoSox fans so Kirk and his son Jordan joined up for a very good evening at a beautiful stadium. We had great seats, just behind first base and in the end the Sox won 8-2. After wards when we asked Coryn what his favorite part of the night was he was quick to bring up the the delicious lemon aide he got and "yummy" cotton candy too. He defiantly has his four year old priorities in order.

Twenty years was way too long in between games for me so I am already planning on going to a Blue Jays/Rays game in Toronto in August after we get up to New York and I would like to take in a Braves game when I go to Atlanta in a few weeks. We'll see how that works out.

Barenaked in the Park

Since our time in Virginia is going to be much shorter than our time in Okinawa was (3 years) or our time in New York will be (2-3 years) we're trying to cram as much in on the weekends as possible. While Lisa promises that she's going to write about everything else the next two are on me.

For several years now my favorite band has been the Canadian group Barenaked Ladies (BNL from here on out)(just ask the folks who were down range with me. For several months I sent out a "Barenaked Lyric of the Day" via e-mail). For those who don't know too much about them their music is really catchy and their lyrics are smart, witty and whimsical. While they're probably best know for their #1 single One Week that came out in 1998, they've been together since 1988 and have cranked out 1 live and 11 studio albums in that time. While I was in Afghanistan I purchased several of their CDs to complete my collection (thank you Amazon) which went a long way in helping me stay sane through my deployment.

Towards the end of my deployment I was shocked, horrified, dismayed, etc, etc to hear that band co-founder Steven Page was leaving the band. BNL tries to maintain a relatively clean, family friendly image and Steven kept ending up in houses that were being raided by narcotics agents. ANYWAY, while this might have killed many other bands (for all intents and purposes Steven was the lead singer and front man for the group), the four remaining members are all accomplished musicians and song writers, they've all sung lead on several songs throughout the bands history and Ed Robertson, their current front man (and the other co-founder) has sung lead on as many songs as Steven has. In April BNL released their first CD since the quintet became a quartet and have managed to maintain the same feel and sound as they've always had.

In 2008 before I deployed we saw that BNL had released an album of original children's songs and the boys have absolutely loved it. On a side note, the CD is just as entertaining for adults as for kids so for all my friends out there while young children I would highly recommend Snacktime!, especially if you're getting tired of hearing Old McDonald over and over. When we heard that they were coming to a nice outdoor amphitheater just north of Richmond we thought it would be a fun to take the boys to their first concert (because, as you know, kids these days love the rock & roll). It was a great show, both Coryn and Carter really seemed to enjoy themselves and they even got to hear their favorite BNL song preformed live, the classic Polliwog in a Bog preformed by bassist Jim Creeggan and drummer Tyler Stewart :



Serena Ryder was the opening act. We got there after she went on so I'm not sure if she was supposed to have back up musicians or not but she hinted that she should have, specifically during one song where she was all over the place and then had to stop and catch her breath. While she did that she explained that this is where the other two singers were supposed to be giving her a break. Ed did come out to accompany her for one song, so that was kind of cool. Once the main act came out things got hoppin'. We were sitting towards the back of the venue (we didn't want the boys to go deaf after all) so we weren't able to get too many good pictures but we did bring the boys closer to the stage a time or two so they could get a good look at the essential rock instruments being used (like the rock staples of bongos and stand up bass in the clip above).

SONG LIST for RICHMOND 4 JUNE 2010:

1. Testing 1,2,3
2. Old Apartment
3. Falling for the First Time
4. ADLIB - It's a Beautiful Day Virginia (First 30 Seconds of this clip)



5. Every Subway Car
6. Anther Heartbreak
7. A Medley for Robin the Fan (Robin has been following them for several cities now, he always requests songs and the band always disappoints him so they played three or four lines of a few songs he'd requested)
8. The Love We're In
9. Polliwog in a Bog
10. Sound of Your Voice
11. Get in Line
12. Four Seconds (The boys current favorite, for the record, they successfully rhyme orange three times... though the Canadian accent might have helped) This version is not from our show but was from September 09



13. Too Little Too Late
14. On the Lookout
15. The Big Bang Theory (the theme song from the TV show with the same name. One of my favorites and one of the last songs I thought I'd hear at the show)



16. One Week
17. It's All Been Done
18. Pinch Me
19. $1000000
20. Adlib - Magic (got to love the choreographed dance moves at the end)



(If you're wondering about the boxers, on song #18 (Pinch Me) there is a line that says (I could hide out under there/I just made you say underwear... well when Ed finished saying I could hide out under there several articles were thrown on stage and he changed the line to say I just made you throw underwear. Anyway by the end of the song Jim had a yellow bra on the end of his has base and Kevin who plays keyboard, synthesizer, accordion, etc) had the boxers on the end of his electric guitar that he started rocking back and forth, when they fell off there was a thong underneath it)

ENCORE:
21. Easy
22. What a Good Boy

And no musical even is complete without Coryn playing the air guitar!