Boys and boxes

There is an old adage about a child who receives a toy at Christmas and plays with the toy for five minutes, but plays with the box the rest of the day. That may not be exactly true at our house, but our boys are very fond of boxes.

When we bought the mattress set for the guest room last month, it came with an offer for a free set of sheets and pillows. The items arrived yesterday in a fairly good-sized box. After we removed the contents, Aidan asked if he could have the box and before we could even answer, he was dragging it into the sunroom. It wasn't long before he climbed into the box and started decorating it.


After Aidan went to bed, our feline boy started playing in it.

Nothing like a good ol' cardboard box to entertain the boys in the house!

Take me out to the ballgame

While visiting my mother last week, we had the opportunity to attend a Tennessee Smokies baseball game. As I have mentioned previously, the Tennessee Smokies are no Durham Bulls, and the Smokies Park is definitely no Durham Bulls Athletic Park. But an evening at the Smokies Park is better than no baseball at all, so off we went.

My mother's senior choir from her church was invited to sing the national anthem that night, so that was the group with whom we were sitting. This presented a bit of a problem for James and I: while we have heard that some people over the age of 21 do not drink beer at baseball games, we certainly do not fall into that category. Ever. I have sat through Durham Bulls games in 50 degree weather and still enjoyed a cold brew. It is just what we do at a baseball game.

So our challenge was how to enjoy a cold beer but not offend or embarrass my mother in front of her fellow choir members. If it was just Mom, okay, but we were her invited guests at her outing among her friends, and there was no way we were going to upset her. We thought about trying to camouflage the beer in regular drink cups but the kibosh was put on that brilliant idea when we realized that we were sitting in a "no alcohol" section. No alcohol? In a baseball park? That is just not right.

Rats. But we saw the opportunity to quench our thirst when Aidan spotted the playground past third base. We excused ourselves to take him there, then quickly purchased and quaffed a small Blue Moon Belgian White. Ahh. It was cold, it was delicious and it put us in a good frame of mind to return to the no alcohol section and enjoy a few innings of minor league baseball.