Mariners Post Season Hopes

I have been a season ticket holder for the Mariners since 2002. I have had a great time with my tickets. But I have yet to see a postseason. So when we got down to the end of this season you can imagine I was very excited. The Mariners were asking me to buy postseason tickets. I got tickets for every post season game available including 2 potential tie breaker games and the wild card game. I have been to the last game of the season it think pretty much every year since 2002. None of them really meant anything. About a month prior to the end of the season I started to make plans for the last game. I exchanged a group of tickets to get 4 of them 27 rows behind home plate. I told my mom who was going to the game with me. You never know, it could all come down to that last game of the season. The last month had it's twists and turns. I was on the edge of my seat, white knuckled, cheering the Mariners on. On Saturday night in a must win situation the Mariners pulled out an extra innings win vs the Angels. I had so much adrenaline going I freaked out Jacob a bit. He wasn't quite sure what was going on with me.

Just like I predicted it all came down to the final game of the season. The Mariners need to win and the Athletics needed to lose. Felix was on the mound. There were rally towels flying everywhere. The stadium was pumped. I was watching the Oakland game on my phone while our game was happening. Unfortunately, Oakland pulled out a win. And by the 5th inning our post season hopes were over. But it was a great run. Felix got a standing ovation as he left the field. The Mariners won. And after the game the players saluted the fans for quite a long time. Including an encore dance  performance by Tom Wilhelmsen. That was one of the funniest things I have ever seen at a baseball game. The season was over. But oh well, There is always next season.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QhrkASMPGStJK7mw7

Fair

Eric and I had talked about the Puyallup ... I mean Washington State Fair. (I don't know if I will ever get used to that.) We weren't sure if Tom was really ready to go. I was online and came across and advertisement for sounder train transportation to the fair. We live 10 minutes from the Auburn train station so we thought we would give it a try for half a day. Tom was very excited to to see the train come in on the track. 

He was even more excited when he got to watch it back on film the picture of him standing next to the choo choo.

We rode the Sounder to the Puyallup station. It wasn't a very long ride. They even had a lady selling tickets to get in to the fair on the train so we didn't have to wait in line. Then we took a shuttle to the fair entrance. That was the hardest part because it was pretty crammed especially with a stroller full of stuff. But it was a short ride.

We walked around for a while, enjoyed some fair food, looked at a bunch of the animals, Then we headed over to the rides. Tom only rode about 5 rides, but he had fun. And he did pretty good with all the waiting in lines. We let Tom do one of the kids games where everyone wins. He got a tiny little chicken. But he was lucky enough that a girl on the shuttle home had a whole bunch of animals and gave him a bear, which he loved.

We had a little time before the next shuttle showed up so we went to a mexican restaurant down the street from the train station and had appetizers. Then we got back on the train and headed home. It all worked out great.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hccB6C3xVtTGnqpQ9

Potty

Tom has kind of been trying to go pee pee in the potty for about 6 months or more. We haven't really pushed it, just asked him if he wants to go. Especially in the morning since he goes a lot right after he wakes up. We made a sticker chart right before baby was born to give him some incentives to be a good boy. He didn't get any stickers for going in the potty till we went to the ocean and he hung out with cousin Lena for a week. After that he asked to do some more big kid things. Going pee pee in the potty was one of those things. He is so funny about it. He will sit there for a while, then ask "Walk away Ma Ma". And then he starts going. I look back and he has a huge smile on his face. So far he has only gone in the morning because I know he has to go right then. He hasn't shown a whole lot of interest in going any other time of day.

But he is doing pretty good on his chart. Looks like time to get a new one.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/KPgTYzzp9rBNzbJ7A

New Used Toys

I had just been noticing at daycare that the toys Tom like playing with where for 3 years old which we don't have. Then an entire box of used toys showed up from Utah. And then a neighbor moved and gave us about 10 boxes of stuff. Every couple days we look for something new to pull out of the garage.So exciting for Tom. Hopefully he doesn't lose it when the boxes are empty.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/HSfZuqok8ooCPNaq7

Jacob's First Mariners Game

The Mariner's are having a really good season and in September it looks like every game is going to count. I hadn't gotten to see Felix pitch yet this year and we were going up against Oakland on Saturday night so I convinced Eric to go. I didn't have tickets but I had ones to exchange in. I tried to go online and do it and it wouldn't let me. I tried calling and they said they had less than 5,000 tickets left and you had to buy them at the stadium. So we went down there early in hope of getting tickets. I got to the window and they didn't have anything left. So I went to one of the scalpers and asked if they would trade for tickets to a later game. They guy said he didn't want the game that I had. So I asked him what game did he want tickets for. I went up to the exchange window and got the tickets he wanted and he gave me two seats up in the third deck. So we made it in. We got our Night Court T-Shirts. and we went in to check out the bullpun while we waited for the game to start.

Jacob was passed out and Tom checked out what was going on in the bullpen for quite a long time. When he got bored with that we went up to the play area. It made me really nervous, but for the first time Tom went up in the upper level of the play area. Since there is not really a way to get him out without the help of another kid I was pretty nervous he would get stuck up there. But he did great and had a blast. Jacob... still sleeping. Then we decided to go up to our seats. I only got to sit in our actual seats for about 2 innings with both boys. Eric didn't feel like going in to the game at all. He sat out on the third level landing and watched the game on the TV like a spoil sport. But he did get to see the really cool asteroid, UFO, or whatever it was that streaked across the sky that night. When the kids were restless I went out to see Eric. I took turns with each kid watching the game. Tom had a blast cheering with the crowd because they were so loud and excited. They even finally managed to wake Jacob up. Jacob wasn't quite sure what was going on.

It was a bit tough to get both boys to the game and all. But we managed. And the time that I did to see the game it was exciting. It is too bad the Mariners ended up losing.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ydf593RzYBnifDUA8

Parking Cars

Tom's favorite passed time is to park cars. Some times he counts them or talks about what they look like. He is getting pretty good at counting. His colors are not great yet. He knows the names just not which is which.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2ZJE2Pc14N9Yf7xz6

3 Months Old

Jacob is 3 months old today.

He had another busy month. He took his first trip to the ocean.

I looked back at Tom at 3 Months Old and Jacob had a very similar month. He can hold his head up all the time now. He sits in my lap of I hold him around the waist. He is very interactive now and wants to sit up and see what is going on instead of lying down. He makes a lot of noises now and smiles back at you when you smile at him.

When he is sitting in my lap sometimes he will stand up, jump and even try to put a foot out to walk when his brace is not on. So we started him on the Johnny Jump Up. He likes sitting up. The jumping is a bit hard with the bar on his braces so he mostly just pushes himself around in circles and swings back and forth instead of jumping.

That fun only lasts a little while because he is always hungry. We are working on feeding him from the bottle as well and he is getting better at it. He also seems to have started teething. He is chewing on his fist all the time, drooling and acting a little fussy at times. I really hope he doesn't teeth as bad as Tom did.

The biggest development this month is that Jacob rolled over braces and all. I was very surprised when he did it because Tom was four months when he finally rolled over. He can also scoot and turn around in a circle. He has also started to do the double leg smack down that Tom used to do. And with his brace it is pretty powerful. Hopefully he doesn't break his crib like Tom did. Can't wait to see what other exciting adventures are on our way.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kXnGgdxcCeyxQUiX7

Grandpa's 90th Birthday

Grandpa Ted had his 90th birthday in August. Since most of the family was out of town on vacation we decided to have a small party for him in September at my parents house. Quite a few family members were able to make it on such short notice. For grandpa's birthday I gave him a present that he was pretty excited about. I got him an external hard drive to hold all of his home videos that I converted from old Video 8 tapes. I was going to try and make it a surprise but Grandma didn't know enough about it. So I had to tell grandpa I was doing it. I bought a little screen capture converter cable online and converted about 60 hours of video. I didn't really have time to edit any of it before the party, but I put some up on the screen for all the family to see at the party. They got a kick out of that. I will post some of the videos when I get a chance to do some editing. As you can imagine 60 hours is a lot of editing.

Both of my grandfathers had already passed long before I was even born. Both of my parents had lost their fathers when they were young. Grandma Clarice married Grandpa Ted when I was pretty young. He fit right into our big family. Video camera had become somewhat common place during that time period and Grandpa Ted took video of just about every event. I feel so lucky that Grandpa Ted came along. He is the only Grandpa I ever knew. I don't think Grandma could have picked a better person.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VJdTpg1hxqKpQK7J9

Walk Away Mama

I knew this would come one day, but I did not expect it so soon. When Tom thinks I am cutting into his fun time he now says "Walk away Mama". I guess I am the bad cop of the house that keeps us on schedule and he is letting me know he doesn't like that.

Trains!

Tom loves anything with wheels. Cars, trucks, school bus, dump truck, garbage truck, fire truck, and of course trains. He was so lucky that Riley decided that he would pass along his Thomas the tank engine trains and track. Tom was so excited he could hardly contain himself. Especially when he figured out that some of them had batteries and would move down the track on their own. Thanks Riley!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/t53ggm9QV5AWivBP7