Blake Family Blog: Brayden's Week

Brayden enjoyed a busy yet good past week and a half. He and I went to Salina for several days by ourselves to visit family and meet Brayden's first 1st cousin Betsy. Tim stayed in Kansas City to enjoy time with friends at the Big 12 Basketball Tournament and made a day trip to Salina to spend Sunday with everyone. I was excited to be with Tim for the K-State game on Thursday night of the tournament, then not so excited to hear from many people that we were frequently on TV thanks to the camera angle being perfectly aligned with our seats! Then, for the amusement of many of our friends in attendance, Tim and I made the kiss cam on the big screen - us and Bill Snyder and his wife. We even made our friend Joe's twitter feed, so I think once you've made twitter, you've officially made it!

Brayden did great in Salina, sleeping and napping in different places throughout the trip. We spent one morning at the play area at the Central Mall which also still houses a great aquarium from when Tim and I were growing up. Brayden has his own sign language for "swim" now that he uses whenever I bring out our pool bag or we go to the gym. He has started using it whenever he sees fish on TV or in books after our visit to the mall's aquarium. He also became very brave this trip and is now friend's with Tim's mom's cats and Uncle Steven's dogs. He giggles at the dogs lots, knows where they sleep and always points to go see them.

Once back home, Brayden enjoyed swimming lessons, two play dates with other little boys and trips to HyVee and Oak Park Mall to ride the "neighs" (aka horses). And of course lots of basketball! He is constantly asking for basketball. Friday was very fun for me as Tim and I spent the day together watching two games at the Sprint Center as part of the NCAA tournament. These were my first tournament games and Tim's second. He remembers going with his dad and brother Wes to watch Michigan and the Fab Five play in Wichita during junior high. Friday we saw Pat Riley, Wayne Simien and the real family from the movie "The Blind Side". Our seats were in the Ole Miss section for the first game and we decided that the Ole Miss Rebel bear mascot would have scared Brayden for days! The Sprint Center was packed with purple for the K-State game, but unfortunately this was not the year for our Wildcats to make a NCAA tournament run. The report from the babysitter was that Brayden actually told her to turn off basketball since he was so disgusted with the K-State game!

And today, after our busy week, nine more inches of snow!