Friday Night Baseball Game

Although it was nice and hot last Friday night, we enjoyed watching the Indianapolis Indians play a game of baseball.  Lane had a meeting with the Indiana State Bar Association that they held in one of the suites at the stadium and then invited family to watch the game after the meeting.  Luckily we were in the open air deck and got a great breeze so it made watching the game extremely pleasant.  We had food, beverages and snacks available the whole time.  The problem was that the kids kept seeing the vendors in the stands just below us and were upset there was no cotton candy or ice cream for them in the suite.  Oh well.

This was Eriks' 3rd minor league game and Emi's first.  Neither of them was really all that interested in it unfortunately.  Emi especially.  She just wanted to run all over the place.  It might be awhile before we take the kids back to a game because they got bored easily.  I on the other hand, wouldn't mind catching another one sometime soon.

We left the game during the 8th inning as Emi wanted no part in it anymore.  It was getting late and one of the lawyers that was there with his wife and 2 kids bowed out during the 4th inning.  He had a younger son that had the same mindset as Emi.  He was having no fun and I think his other 3 kids were also getting a little restless.

Dziesmu Svetki in Milwaukee

Every 5 years the Latvians hold a song and dance festival here in the US.  In 2007, it was right here in my hometown of Indianapolis.  There are Latvian song and dance festivals all over the world.  Next year the largest one will be in our homeland of Latvia.  The Canadians do one as well that I've attended multiple times in my life.  I'm sure there are others all over the world where Latvians live.

Last Friday, Lane, Emi and I hopped in the car and drove the 4 1/2 hrs to Milwaukee to see Eriks dance in his first ever songfest.  We originally had no plans on going as it's an expensive trip between hotel, food and all the other activities.  But, when it came down to it, we could NOT miss seeing Eriks participate in his first one.  So we found a way to come up with the money to go up for one night to watch him dance.  Eriks had left on Wednesday with my parents and sister.  He had no idea we were coming.  He thought we were staying home.  So when we arrived and knocked on the room door, he opened it and couldn't believe we were standing there.  He was happy but then went right back to playing his DS.

Friday night was the big dance performance.  I was told that there were roughly 600 dancers participating from all over the US, Canada and Latvia.  I enjoyed the dances and it was fun to watch both my sister and Eriks dance.  However, I do have one big complaint about the program.  Whomever choreographed how/where the groups were dancing and choreographed the lighting for the performance should've been fired.  It was horrible.  So many of the dancers were dancing in darker areas of the arena it was not only hard to see them, but hard to see the actual dance.  They also used some weird colored lights on some of the dances so it was hard to see because of the colors of the lights.  That was truly disappointing and a huge complaint by most everyone I've talked to since the performance.  They all thought the same thing about the lighting especially.  Although everyone who has seen my photos from the performance loved them, I was disappointed because lighting played a huge part of it and I didn't want to attach an external flash with a bounce card and distract someone who was trying to watch the performance so all my photos are taken without flash and using the lighting that I had in the arena.

We go to see friends we hadn't seen in awhile and got to meet some new people.  The main hotel where the song and dance festival was based in was always busy.  On Saturday, the second to last day, we got drinks from the bar and the bartenders said they had already run out of certain brands of alcohol.  I wish they'd listen to the organizing committees when they're told to order extra liquor.  We had the same problem here in Indy 5 years ago.  The hotel that was home base didn't listen to the committee and started to run out too.  I'm sure that hotel made more money though in those 4 days than they ever thought.  I'd love to find out what their profit was for those 4 days.

So here are some photos from the fun festivities.  I really wish we had been able to afford to go for the entire time.  With that being said, I'm glad we got to see Eriks in his first ever big performance and that we were able to go at all.

 Eriks and my sister in Latvian folk costumes.  My sister is actually wearing mine!

 Indianapolis' dance group - Jautrais Paris (in English the Happy Couple). 

 Chicago's dance group - Dzelmiesi 

 Eriks dancing!

 Our very small kids group.  Three of the members stayed in Indy and didn't participate.  Half of those dancers are related to me as one is my son and 3 of the girls are my nieces!

 This is a wide angle shot of many of the groups dancing one of the 25 different dances in the program.

 My sister dancing with Jautrais Paris.

Fourth of July (Lots of Photos)

Lane, Emi and I just got back into town last night after a short, 2 day, whirlwind trip to Milwaukee and then Michigan.  Eriks is still in Michigan with my sister and dad.  We left very early Friday morning and I was busy packing and getting the house straightened before we left all day Thursday so there was no time to post.

So on the 4th, Eriks took off for Milwaukee with my parents for the Latvian Song & Dance festival.  So for the next 2 days it was just going to be Lane, Emi and me.  It was already blistering hot but we decided we were going to see the 4th of July parade that our growing suburb does every year.  Even when I lived here before I got married, I never went to the parade.  So it was going to be a 1st for all of us.  Luckily, we parked in the lot at a church along the parade route and close to the street there were huge trees that gave us shade and kept us cool for most of the parade.  It was still hot, but thankfully we weren't as hot as those people who were sitting in the sun.  The parade lasted about an hour.  We got to see marching bands, various organizations, etc.  Emi even got candy as those who were in the parade gave it out along the parade route.  Towards the end, Emi was hot and getting impatient so we left not long before it ended and that was OK.  We avoided traffic and that was the best part.

That evening we went back to watch the fireworks.  It was still miserably hot but at least the sun had set so it felt cooler.  I think a lot of people decided to skip the fireworks because of the heat.  In years past when we've gone to watch them, the main drag of town where people set up to watch them has always been packed and parking hard to find.  This year, we had no problem finding a place to park and found a great area to watch fireworks from.  Even getting out the traffic wasn't bad.  Emi enjoyed the fireworks too.  Although after awhile she started to get bored and tired so she was climbing in and out of Lane's lap.

I'll post about our quick trip to Milwaukee in the next few days.  I'm going in tonight to have a sleep study done and not sure if I'll have the energy to do it tomorrow since I'll be coming home between 5 and 6 am.  I'll probably come home and go straight back to sleep.  I still haven't uploaded or edited any of the photos either.