Trip to Aurora May - First Day

The clock reads 3:45 am

This is my first visit to Brendan and Eileen and their new home in Aurora IL.  With the three kids - Braden, Brock, and Brady - they moved here in January as Brendan returned to work for Ryan Homes.  Aurora is about a 10 hour drive from Rochester, so it was a better choice to fly rather than drive.  It seemed like a better idea a month and half ago to fly Southwest out of Buffalo to save a few bucks.  that would have been a good idea were it not the 6:00 am departure which meant that I needed to get on the road there at 3:45 am!

Pretty Braden

It all kind of worked out OK.  I had a nice wait at Midway while Eileen made her way through rush hour traffic to pick me up.  I had a nice conversation with Meg in Appleton WI just three hours or so north.  Things are going well for her and I confirmed that her final home "bout" with her Roller Derby team will be this Saturday and it will be streamed.  We are all planning on watching it here in Aurora.  Once I got to their new place, I crashed and took a two hour nap.  After a late lunch with Brendan at Red Robin, we returned home and bean to get ready for the afternoon activities:  getting the kids from school and getting the kids set for athletic activities.  Braden had soccer practice and Brock had a baseball game.  Brady will begin baseball next week and then football in the fall.

The major event today was seeing Brock play baseball.  He is nine but this is his first year.  he is a gifted athlete and very coachable...and, I should say, he has a knowledgeable coach in his Dad.  It was wonderful getting back on a Little League field and watching Brendan interact with his son in that context.  He retains that sense of humor which we all love even with this game and his son both of which he loves dearly.  Brock played well and enjoyed the game.  His team is named the Knights after the Charlotte AAA team and they played the (Rochester) Redwings.. ironically.  The Knights lost but that's baseball.  Brock had some nice plays in the field especially fielding a hard grounder from his second base position and throwing the runner out at first for an inning ending play.

The game was interrupted by a cute little dog that got away from its family and led everyone on quite merry chase before its owner finally napped the little rascal.

We returned home to scrumptious Mexican meal prepared by Eileen and some chocolate and peanut brownies that Braden made.  Brendan and I plan on playing golf in the morning.  It will be the first time I have swung a club this season.  Should be interesting.  Brendan needs to get some course time since he has been invited to play Medina Country Club in a couple of weeks.  That is the site of this year's Ryder Cup.  A challenging course...but we are tackling a local layout of considerably less difficulty.  It looks to be a warm and sunny day.  Then Brock has a soccer game in the evening.

Take a look at the photo album.