All posts by Paige

Take Me out to the Ballgame!

You know how, when there’s a contest, or something free to win, or a drawing for door prizes, you usually just kind of don’t win? I guess that’s how life usually is. But then when something incredibly lucky does happen, it just makes it that much cooler!

We had our incredibly lucky experience on Friday night. For date night we headed to a Rough Riders game, a minor league team in the Dallas area. We planned on buying the cheap grass-seat tickets, and we were late getting there because we got slightly lost, but it turns out being late was the best thing that happened that night.

As we walked up to the stadium to buy tickets, a man approached us with two wristbands. “Would you guys want these wristbands?” he offered us. “They let you get free food. My daughters were going to come, but they’re out of town.”

“Awesome, thanks!” we said. “Where do we go to buy tickets?”

“No, you don’t need tickets with these,” he said as he handed us the wristbands. Then we understood that the wristbands he was giving us were magical passes into the stadium that also guaranteed us free food from four different places inside. We thanked the man even more and walked inside, where the ticket collectors enthusiastically explained to us all of the free food and perks our tickets came with.

Then we proceeded to enjoy an awesome baseball game, including nachos, soda, hot dogs, ice cream, prime rib, roast beef, box seats, rootin’ for the home team, and all the other happiness and joy that comes from summer baseball games. Oh, and fireworks.

So thanks to that really nice man who gave us the tickets, whoever you are! You totally made our night.

Summer = Swimming = Awesome

Oh, the joys of pools during the summer heat of Texas. We spent an entire morning working out on the lawn and cleaning up, and at one point it was just time to jump in, clothes and all! Pools are the best. Enjoy (and live vicariously through) the pictures!

4th of July Weekend, Part 2

So ready to hear about Part 2 of our vacation over the 4th of July? (See Part 1 first.) Part 2 actually consisted mostly of driving. After celebrating the family reunion in Show Low, we woke up the next day and drove and drove and drove towards our destination of Roswell, New Mexico, where our hotel was. We were all very excited to visit Roswell, the town of legendary UFO fame, because it just so happens that the weekend we were there was same weekend as the international UFO festival. Wow.

Brenn, Shelby, Jennie, and Cole had spent most of the weekend writing “we come in peace” and “aliens welcome” on the side of the van and planning out alien costumes to mingle with the alien fanatics. And we watched Contact the night before to prepare for any alien encounters (we were going to watch Signs, but Paige’s mom doesn’t like scary movies. And it turns out that Contact, which is good but not quite as gripping, put everyone but us to sleep.) But we were really glad we watched Contact, because when we were driving the next day, guess what we just happened to drive by? Yep, the Very Large Array in New Mexico, featured on the movie as a tool to hear extra-terrestrial signals. (Wouldn’t it be cool if everything had a name as fitting as the VLA?)

We got to stop, take pictures, and walk around, and it was pretty cool.

When we did roll into Roswell that night, it turned out most of the alien festivities were over, but we did enjoy seeing tons of alien and UFO paraphernalia throughout the town. All the siblings bought UFO t-shirts the next morning on our way out.

So after another day of travel, we arrived back at Dallas and said goodbye to the Ellsworths. All in all, a way fun (though pretty quirky) family vacation.