I think the kids could’ve stayed here playing the whole afternoon if we hadn’t gotten hungry.  I am thankful I found a log to sit on while they were keeping themselves busy.

The turtles were as glad to see the warm weather as we were, I think.

Yesterday June, Mason, & I got out of our houses for a little bit. This is the view sitting on the bench at the end of the Lake Crawford Trail. So pretty, and it was absolutely a gorgeous day to be outside.

It was too cold for them to actually get in the water, but I found a log for them to sit on, and they played while I watched until we had to head up to find a bathroom 🙂

Sunday afternoon we had lunch to celebrate Addie’s birthday.  There were plenty of candles 🙂

About the last thing in the big museum to see was a cage, where you could stand like you were the umpire, and a pitcher threw at 90 mph fast ball right at the catcher in front of you. That was one fast ball, I’m telling you.

Our final stop was at the batting cage, where Jeff took a few swings. It was the first time he’d actually swung a bat in 20 years, and after whiffing the first one, I think he at least made contact on all the others. He was, however, out of breath and had a hurting back by the time he was done :-). What a great day.

Of course I loved the information at the museum about the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, especially this bit about Dottie – one of my favorites in the A League of Their Own movie 🙂

Possibly our favorite part of the museum was this area where you could go in and swing bats that were actually used in a game by various players. Once we saw one of them was Johnny Bench, needless to say, Jeff had to give it a try. You had to wear batting gloves to keep the oils from your hands from getting on the bat, plus there was a plexiglass covering on the grip – but how cool is that? An actual bat used by Johnny Bench. Wow.

Today Jeff & I headed over to Louisville this morning to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum. What a fun, fun way for a couple of lifelong baseball fans to spend the day. We started off with the factory tour. No pictures were allowed while we were in the factory, but there were these giant signs of different MLB players & quotes from them about Louisville Slugger bats.

From there we went into the museum, and it was full of fun reminders of all the pieces of baseball history that took place with Louisville Slugger bats. Because Andy was such a fan, Willie Mays was a big part of my childhood, so I loved finding his picture, with his bats, in there.

Another low key day in Indiana.  Jeff’s mom & dad came by the hotel and picked us up, and we headed about ten miles up the road to visit Jeff’s brother Mark.  He is busy at work on his house, adding bedrooms to get ready for his new granddaughter, due to arrive the first part of May :-).  We visited a while, went out to eat at my favorite Indiana restaurant, and then went on a car tour of Henryville, the pretty little town where Mark lives.  We finished up the tour with a visit to Henryville State Forest, which surrounds Mrk’s property, but which I’d never been to.  It was a pretty hazy, overcast day, but the views were incredible.  It didn’t show up in this picture, but you could see Louisville, KY in the distance.  Now I’m looking forward to going back on a clear day 🙂

Checking out the views.

We spent the day yesterday with Jeff’s mom & dad – drove around to see all the new additions to the town in the past year, ate lunch at the traditional Copper Kettle (their favorite restaurant there in town), and then hung out for the afternoon until time to watch the Indiana basketball game. During the afternoon Jeff & I walked over to the high school to check out the gym. We were able to get in, & it was fun seeing all the displays there. I knew that Indiana just had the one class of high school sports for a lot longer than many places did, and sure enough there was this plaque commemorating the final year. Pretty cool.

We walked around & checked everything out, and then started walking back to the house. As we were crossing the parking lot a car came up behind us and honked its horn, and it turned out to be friends of Jeff’s (and now mine) from high school. They live in Charlestown but had never been in the gym since it was built several years ago, so we went back & walked around with them inside it again. I got this picture of Jeff & David under their cross country and track team champion team pix :-). Good times.

Tuesday morning we left early to drive to Indiana – 7:13 to be exact, so just a little off our goal departure time of 7 AM :-). We actually like to stop on our way & spend the night, but that just didn’t work in our schedule this time, but we did have a nice long stop at the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea. Beautiful items for sale, none of which we could afford, but it was fun looking. I have always loved these twig chairs.

As soon as we got checked in at the hotel, Jeff wanted to find the coffee machine – and they also had a yogurt machine, which I’d never seen before. Nice. And it takes so little to amuse me 🙂