Today I did not get anything in the mail but Cami did! Well, I did receive the Bruce Springsteen’s The Ties that Bind box set but it was not signed. Cami got the coolest mail today.
About ten months or so ago, Cami mailed a couple “Artists Cards” to Chris Renaud. Chris is an animator in the Dispicable Me/Minions franchise. If you know Cami, her all time favorite characters are minions. Her nickname for student council is even Minion! Chris graciously drew two minions and signed her cards. When she opened them she just stared at them. She was so excited. Chris really made her day and me envious! I tried to offer something to Cami in trade for one of them but she was having NONE of that!
Category: Cami
A First and a Gift
Today was bittersweet. It was the last game of the 2015 season for the Twins. It was the first time in a long time they were playing meaningful games all the way up to the final weekend. The season certainly exceeded my expectations.
As was our Sunday tradition, Cami and I headed to the game early enough for her to get autographs in the kids autograph area. Today it was Logan Darnell and JR Graham. I had just received a Twins Topps Heritage High Number set a few days ago and in it was JR Graham. I happened to put one in the pile of cards we take to the game just in case and it paid off! Cami got Logan on a signature card and when she got to JR, he looked at it and said it was his first MLB rookie card. He had not seen it before then! Cami asked if he would sign it with first time I sign this card or something like that and he did! He signed his name on the front and on the back wrote “10-4-15 1st RC signed J.R. G”. It was pretty cool! She was really excited.
Later on during the game Cami asked me if she could go to the restroom and I let her go. When she came back and had a Kennys Vargas signed baseball in her hand. She was stoked and told me an usher noticed her volunteer shirt (she had volunteered at the Twin Cities Marathon with Amy earlier that morning) and asked what she volunteered for. She told him and he asked if she volunteers anywhere else and she mentioned her family goes to Feed My Starving Children about once a month. The usher said keep up the good work and gave her the baseball. Later on he came to our seats and explained why he did it and why her. I am always proud of the kids and their volunteering so this just reaffirmed to Cami that she is doing the right thing.
The Twins lost the game but afterwards Cami ran the bases and we walked out looking forward to being back there in January for Twinsfest.
What a Base!
Today was a Sunday and that meant it was Cami’s turn to go to the Twins game with me. Cami decided not to do the kids autograph line like she usually does and instead wanted to go down to the right field foul territory and see who was signing. She ended up getting Casey Fien and Ryan O’Rourke on a baseball that will be the start of her 2016 Twinsfest baseball.
If that isn’t cool, get this story. I could not make this up if I tried! Back on August 1, Cami was a Grounds Crew Buddy and was assigned to second base. That meant that at the end of the 5th inning, she ran out with a member of the grounds crew to change bases. Her job was to carry the new base to second, pull out the old one, put the new one in place and jump on it. As she was running off she said hi to Eduardo Escobar and he waved back to her. Fast forward to today’s game and, what has become our tradition, we look at all the cool things at the game used kiosk. The person working there today asked if he could help me with anything. I said “I have a long shot” and he said try me. I told him I was looking for the base from August 1st. Not just any base either but SECOND base. He said “I have a base from August 1st” and flipped it over to see it was second base. Wow. Fate. I checked the hologram and found out it was the base that was used at second base from innings 6-9 on August 1st. What are the odds. I went to our seats to think about it (it was $300 because it has the special tags on it for the 50th anniversary of the 1965 team on it). Later on I told Cami was going to go to the restroom and would be back soon. I ran down to the kiosk and bought it. She was so excited when I came back with it. She said it is her birthday present for the next two years! I figured I could not pass up the opportunity that was so amazingly put in front of me. What are the odds?
Kids Day at Target Field!
Today was a Sunday Twins game we had tickets to so that meant Cami was going to the game with me. We got there early so she could get in line for autographs. The players who were signing were Neal Cotts and Tyler Duffey. Cami got signature cards signed by each player. When she got to Tyler, she said “You have an awesome curveball!”. What was cool was Tyler was all business signing everything and rarely looking up. When Cami said that he looked up and smiled to her and thanked her. That was pretty cool. We had a blast at the game and afterwards we stuck around so she could run the bases.