Lucas Oil Stadium Opening!

Yesterday we went down to the brand new Lucas Oil Stadium public opening. We figured that since you had to have a ticket to get in--a free ticket, but a ticket nonetheless--the crowd management would be pretty good. Wrong. There were WAAAAY too many people for a ticketed event and it was very crowded. Still, we did get to see a lot of the stadium and we can say we were there.

Everyone was there in their Colts blue glory, including the "Superfan" who Alex got to take his picture with. We walked around half of the concourse (stopping to have a giant pretzel) and then went into the actual stadium. We sat in the seats that we could never afford in real life to see how the other half lives and watched the crazy crowds and the jumbo TVs. Andrew liked this part the best and kept saying his new word "TV!" over and over and over--and OVER again. We even got to be on the giant screens and wave to the crowd.

Then we got to go down onto the actual field--also something we'll probably never do again--and touch the field where the magic will happen this season. The turf is a very interesting consistency. It's green plastic stringy stuff sticking up out of what looks like very finely shredded rubber. Very soft and bouncy, actually. We got to take a peek into the field level suites--very nice, of course.

The line just to walk past the locker room doors was at 40 minutes by the time we got ready to head that way and the boys were starting to melt a bit so we decided to forgo that and head home. Overall, a nice little visit to Indy's newest attraction. Go Colts!

Sunday Picnic

We took some time out of our crazy schedule to have a picnic down at our favorite spot, the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art on Sunday. The weather was absolutely perfect and the gardens were beautiful, as always.

We took some pictures next to the Robert Indiana numbers sculpture, which oddly enough I believe is called "0". We started doing this for Alex's second birthday next to the "2" and have tried to get one every year. We, of course, tried to capture Andrew's "1" but he was less than enthusiastic as you can see in the picture. At that point he just wanted to RUN, which we let him do a lot of that day.

The picnic part of the day proved a little less than successful--all Alex wanted were the cookies and Andrew refused everything but the juice. So actually it was an attempted picnic and we just ended up eating at home. Still, it was a very nice time and we always enjoy our family outings there.

Watermelon!

The boys were out enjoying some watermelon the other day and we got some great pictures of them--Andrew in particular was pretty gun-ho about the whole thing and dug right in. Yay to summertime!

Alex's Swim Class

Yesterday was Alex's last day of swimming lessons and he actually did really well! We went to the Monon Center's indoor aquatic center and the class was taught by 4 teenagers, which was really a good thing because trying to teach seven 3- and 4-year olds to swim at the same time appears a little bit like herding cats--teens are the only one's with enough energy to handle it all!

He learned how to blow bubbles in the water and then fully submerge himself. He also learned how to kick softly and vigorously as well as how to do "ice cream scoops" (freestyle stroke) and the "pizza push" (breast stroke). I can't say that he's able to swim without the assistance of a floatation device, yet, but he's well on his way. He's much more comfortable in the water now and I'm hoping to enroll him in another class over the winter so he'll be a little fishy by next summer. The pictures are a bit fuzzy since I was taking them from across the pool and it's not very well lit but you get the picture. Way to swim Alex!!!