Well I had a pretty good time this past weekend. I got to spend 3 days of doing nothing, but watching MLB & NFL games. Live. In person. Jennifer and I kinda have this “vacation agreement” that gives me these opportunities.

Jennifer gets to decide what we do for our “big vacation”, which is basically a week long trip. So far she has pretty much picked Disneyworld every year. Although she has said she wants to mix in a cruise sometime soon. So of course this year we’re going to Disneyworld. Only this time it’s a little more special because we’ll actually have a child with us. Yes, this will be Siler’s first ever Disneyworld trip.

Since Jennifer chooses our week long vacations, that leaves me with a couple of short/mini/3-day vacations to choose what we do. For the most part I pick a couple of sporting events for us to attend. This past weekend worked out as a really well because I was able to watch two sports.

The Braves are my MLB team of choice and I try to go see them play anytime they are in St. Louis. Friday night was the start of a 3 game series against the Cardinals. We got to downtown St. Louis around 5:00 pm and it had been sprinkling off and on for about a hour. We were a little worried the game might get delayed. Thankfully it didn’t rain any more that night and the weather ended up being awesome. Our seats were about 10 rows behind home plate (thank you Stubhub). Former Cardinal/Brave Brian Jordan even walked right by us.

The usher in our section was this really nice older lady. When she was walking around Jennifer and I noticed she had some huge bling bling on her finger. The next inning when she came by I thought it looked like a World Series ring. I asked her about it and said the Cardinals allowed all their employees to buy em. Then she even let me take a picture with it on.

Saturday we ended up walking around downtown St. Louis and ate at Don Shula’s 347 Grill. It was awesome, one of the best steaks I’ve ever had. Jennifer got a blue cheese burger and it was by far the best hamburger I’ve ever tasted in my life. That afternoon we even went by the Galleria mall and let Jennifer do some shopping. That night we went back to Busch stadium to watch some more MLB.

On Sunday we got a little early so we could check out by 10:00 am. We had plans to go the Rams vs Eagles game that it started it noon. The stadium was only like 6 blocks from our hotel, but we had to get there extra early. A friend of a friend was able to get us pre-game field passes and I didn’t want to miss any of it. We get ushered into the stadium through the tunnels and there is a ton of security and other personnel walking around. Then we go through one of the tunnels right there on the field. The players were all warming up, commentators were setting up for pregame and people like NFL films were walking around taking pictures. Brian Billick, Sal Paolantonio and other reporters were all there. I even got to take a picture with sports agent Drew Rosenhaus. So for an hour and half we are just walking around the sidelines and watching people warm up. Mike Vick, DeSean Jackson, Ronnie Brown, Jeremy Maclin, Vince Young, Sam Bradford & Steven Jackson are all there. Some are maybe 5 feet away warming up or standing around. At one point I was standing right next to Drew Rosenhaus watching them warm up, when DeSean Jackson (one of his clients) came over and gave him a hug. It was tempting to reach over and join in, but I didn’t want to weird em out. Jennifer almost got ran over by a few Eagles linemen. They were doing some drills and got close enough to make her jump back. After that we watched the game from the stands and then went home.

Overall it was an awesome weekend. The Braves lost all 3 games, but I think that was Jennifer’s fault. I’m pretty sure she is bad luck because the Braves lost all 3 games in St. Louis the last time I took her.The pre-game sideline stuff was by far the best part. It’ll probably ruin any NFL game I go to in the future if I don’t get to hang out on the sidelines.

The video below is a a breakdown of the entire weekend. And here some more pictures I posted to Flickr: #StLouis2011

You can see watch the video on YouTube in HD by clicking the following url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iN5KZQFP6E&hd=1

Ever since Siler was born a little over a year ago we’ve been extremely lucky when it comes to babysitters. Between family and friends there has been maybe 3 days where either Jennifer or I had to take off work to watch Siler. And I’m pretty sure all 3 of those days were either because Siler became sick and needed to go to the doctor or because our main babysitter was giving birth :)

Right off the bat we had family who were available at a moment’s notice. Mine and Jennifer’s parents have never turned down an opportunity to watch Siler. All the Grandparents have taken vacation days to watch Siler without us even asking. When we’re in need of a babysitter the conversation usually goes like this.

Me: Hey, are you off next Tuesday?
Grandparent: I don’t think so, Why?
Me: We were trying to find somebody to watch Siler.
Grandparent: Hang on let me see if I can take a vacation day.
Me: Oh no, it’s not that big of deal. Jennifer said she can take that day off.
Grandparent: I’ll take off. I’ll call you tomorrow to let you know for sure.
Me: Uh, ok.... Awesome. Thanks.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Earlier this Spring we needed somebody to babysit for just 2 days. Our main babysitter was pregnant and a few weeks from giving birth. We wanted to give our parents a break since they had been doing the majority of the babysitting. Basically they used all their off days to babysit for us. So Jennifer called up one of her friends, Natalie Martin, to see if she would be interested. Natalie had told us months earlier that she would gladly watch Siler if we needed her, but things were a little different now. Natalie was actually a few months pregnant herself at this point with her first child. Jennifer and I were both worried that it might to hard on Natalie to watch Siler while pregnant. But Natalie came through in the clutch and watched Siler for 2 days for us with no problems at all. We couldn’t thank her enough for getting us out of that jam. If I remember correctly, we tried to pay her and she wouldn’t accept any money from us. Some people are to kind.

One thing Jennifer and I had agreed on was that we didn’t want Siler going to daycare when she was really little. We wanted to wait until she could talk and carry on conversations with us. We ended up hitting the jackpot when Jennifer’s friend, Amber Kennon, told us she would babysit Siler for us. When Siler was born Amber was a stay-at-home mom with 2 kids (Addison 2 & Ava 1). This was a great situation because Siler would be watched by somebody we trusted and she had 2 kids who were close to Siler’s age. It’s kind of a best of both worlds. Siler is with somebody we know and trust. Plus she gets to interact with kids her age.

The best part is that Amber has been an amazing babysitter. She’s so good, that Siler doesn’t want to leave when Jennifer picks her up in the afternoons. Each day she keeps the kids on a schedule. Breakfast, play, lunch, nap, play, snack and play. Both of Amber’s girls just love Siler. Just the other morning I was dropping Siler off and Addison (now 3 years old) woke up and came in to the living room to see Siler. The first thing she did was bend down and give Siler a hug and a kiss. Ava, who is less then a year older than Siler,our like partners in crime. Amber says they tend to walk around the house talking jibber jabber to each other and play together all day. Not only does Siler have fun, but Amber makes them eat healthy and has them do various activities throughout the day. We really are fortunate that our babysitter situation has been a best-case scenario. To Amber, Natalie and especially all the Grandparents, we say “Thank You”.

This past weekend while at Lake Norfolk I conquered a life long demon. One that has haunted me since I was in elementary school. It had to have been before my 10th birthday because my youngest brother, Chase, wasn’t born and he’s 10 years younger than me. So my best estimate is that I was 8 years old when this event occurred.

We’ll go with the Summer of 1990, my family went to Lake Norfolk. We spent a lot of time at the lake in the summer. We would do all sorts of stuff from grilling out, swimming, boat riding, skiiing, tubing and even cliff jumping. There are a bunch of random cliffs at Norfolk and depending on the water level could range from 5 to over 50 feet. One of the more well known cliffs is called “Big E”.

One day we boated over towards “Big E” and I decided that I was gonna jump off of it. My dad and I jump off the boat and swim over to the base of the rock. One thing you don’t really think about is actually having to climb up these rocks before you jump. We start climbing, me first with my dad behind me to make sure I don’t fall. As I get to the top of the cliff I look out over Lake Norfolk and realize this thing is a lot higher up than I originally thought. Just guessing I’d say it was probably around 50ft high. Well 50ft looks like more like a 100ft when you're standing on top and looking out over the water.

So there we were, standing on top of “Big E” looking out of over the water and I’m starting to freak out. I immediately start having second thoughts and want to climb back down. That’s when my dad says “You climbed up here and the only way you’re getting down is by jumping.” and he was dead serious. My dad wasn’t about to let me climb down because he said it was to dangerous. Now I’m freaking out even more.

While we were standing up there other people climb up and jump down. Some have 2nd thoughts as well, but they all eventually jump. Except me and my dad. He’s standing there giving instructions “Don’t look over. Just walk up, jump, put your arms to your side and keep your legs together”. This went on for a few hours, no kidding, a few hours. Just me and my dad standing up there with me frozen and scared to death. To make things even worse there was a crowd of boats and people in the water watching. You tend to get an audience when an 8 year old is standing on a 50ft cliff for 3 hours. Some of the people down below are in their boats yelling “Come on, jump”.

Finally after 3 hours of standing on top of “Big E” (admittedly crying at some points) I managed to walk up and jump. That was 20 years ago and I hadn’t been on top of “Big E” ever since. Sure, I had lots of opportunities, but I always remembered the time I spent 3 hours up there and figured that was plenty of time spent on top of “Big E” and said no thanks. But this past weekend was a different story.

We took the boat over towards “Big E” and somebody said: “Jake, you wanna jump off Big E?” and I replied with “Yeah, I think so”. I jumped out of the boat, climbed up to the top of “Big E”, looked over the lake, walked up to the edge and jumped. All in a matter of 5 minutes. It took me longer to climb up than it did to jump off. After jumping I came up out of the water and swam over to the boat, where my dad was sitting and yelled (In my best Jeff Daniels - Harry from Dumb & Dumber voice) “And I Totally Redeemed Myself!”. Of course he got a big kick out of it and laughed pretty hard before he said: “Yes, you did Jake. Yes, you did”.

For as long as I live I will never forget the only two times I have ever climbed “Big E”, especially the first.

- Jacob

As a side note I thought I would mention that the water at Lake Norfolk is really high right now. So “Big E” was probably only 20ft high when I jumped off this weekend :) 50ft jump > 20ft jump