Three Kids and a Dog: Field of Dreams

Remember that famous line from that Kevin Costner movie, "If you build it, they will come." Well, we came all right...all the way to Iowa over Memorial Day Weekend.

For Tom, Austen, Peyton and Hailey, it was their first trip into the Hawkeye state known for its corn, hogs, soybean, cattle and dairy products. But we were there for baseball. Austen's baseball to be more specific and it was part of the infamous Field of Dreams. Now, they didn't play at that location but they had a skills competition at the actual movie location on the baseball field and showed the movie which we didn't stay for because it was a steamy 95 degrees and the bugs were biting plus after about 3 hours of the skills competition none of they boys wanted to stay for a movie they watched just last week in preparation for their play.

Austen loves tournaments and it doesn't matter if it's soccer or baseball. He gets to hang out with his buddies in a hotel and it's usually in a different state or a different country! He did play fairly well too batting and fielding per usual with some great pitching thrown in there. They played some stiff competition so the outcomes weren't always in our favor but I think the boys learned a lot despite the heat (which was approaching 100 degrees most days - thank God Austen didn't have to play catcher during any of those games but I sure felt bad for the kid who did especially because this tournament play called for you playing only one position the entire game.)

A bonus of playing in Iowa was that we got to explore downtown Dubuque and I got to visit my friend's yoga studio (it was closed that day). Peyton was super thrilled we made her walk around downtown Dubuque in the hot weather but it was nothing that ice cream couldn't erase. We even rode on one of only a few funicular (elevated and curved) rail cars (and the steepest) left in the U.S.

It was a hot weekend but a fun one spent watching America's greatest past time and enjoying friends, family and the long weekend.