Over the weekend, we went to go see the Bridgeport Bluefish take on the Long Island Ducks - and no, I'm not making the names up - honest. We got there early to meet up with the rest of our group - some other folks from my sons Cub Scout Pack - and so were in our seats and feeding children by the 6:05 game start (I got to mouth the National Anthem while waiting for a salad and some pretzels, I think). Thanks to our Pack leader, we got upgraded to seats that were just about on the field - and since we were behind home plate, it couldn't get much better than that.

A good tip for those going to a local, or "farm team" type game - go to your local AAA office for tickets or other specials. Our team offers Bluefish Bucks. AAA sells them at 0.85¢ for each $1 in Bluefish Bucks - so for the $85 I spent on Bucks, we got $100 worth of stuff at the game - well worth the extra effort to get the Bucks, especially since spending $100 at the park on food and "stuff" is insanely easy.

Anyway, late in the 6th inning Ethan was being a bit... cranky. I decided to take him and walk around a bit, figuring that if he fell asleep while we were doing that (carrying him is a good way to make that happen, and the hooded sweatshirt he had on wouldn't hurt), it wasn't the worst thing in the world. I had just gotten up to the walk way between the field seats and the cheap seats when I heard a ball being hit, followed by the crowd making the noise usually associated with a foul-tip that's going into the stands. Seeing as how they'd knocked a few others in the same area, I started looking to see where everyone else was looking, then looking in that direction - to find the ball coming down about 20 feet in front of me. It bounced once, then bounced again a few feet in front of me, and then it was in my outstretched hand - I hadn't really thought about it, just grabbed for the ball. It wasn't until I felt someone behind me that I started to think about the fact that I was carrying Ethan at the time - had that been a MLB game, we might have been crushed in the frenzy to get the ball. That was close.

I walked up some more steps to get to the top of the park, acknowledging all the "Good catch" comments, not really thinking about what I had done - I'm not a huge sports person, so it was more than a little surreal - when Cap'n Long Island (one of the mascots) approached me to sign the ball. He then asked me to stay put, and took the ball over to BB, the 7 foot tall bluefish, to get his signature. Ethan was a little put out by the ball disappearing at first, but when I explained what was happening, and then when we had the ball back and he could see it, he was ok with it - and a little excited about it, too.

After walking around with Ethan for a bit, I returned, to find that Noah and his friend were both excited to see (aka touch) the ball. Ethan kept asking to hold it, but he also kept trying to throw it, so that didn't last very long - clearly he had the wrong idea and was trying to help the umpire out with his dwindling supply of balls.

The 9th inning gave us more excitement, but that was in the game itself: the Ducks managed to catch up the 5 runs they needed to tie the game, and then they managed to deny the Bluefish any runs in the bottom of the 9th. We ended up leaving at 10:15 or so, before the 10th inning started. We had wanted to stay for the fireworks, but with two kids asleep, two more on their way, and Jen scheduled to be at work at 7:00 the next morning, it wasn't likely we'd be able to stay for that long - mirroring every other attempt we've made to catch a game that has fireworks after it. The closest that we've come is seeing the Connecticut Cutters fireworks from the parking lot after the game, and that was mostly obscured by trees.

Sunday we went to some kid's pirate themed birthday party. That some kid would, of course, be Logan, my "God-child." I won't get into the reason for the quotes there, so let's just leave that alone for the time being. Ethan, having known about the Pirate theme for days, brought his own hat to fit in - and ended up being the only appropriately attired guest in attendance. Who knew?

After dinner we went to the SBC Restaurant in Branford. We've always had a good time there, and this proved to be no exception: they had hired a magician to go from table to table, keeping the kids happy. This guy did a good job with some little tricks to keep the kids happy, then made a turtle, a sword and a mermaid out of balloons before moving on to another family. It's safe to say that it was the first balloon mermaid he had ever made - and quite possibly his last....