A Phan is Born

Moving to Pennsylvania has created quite the journey for McKinley in deciding her sports teams.  We feel strongly that the children should be free to choose their own teams to root for (HA!  What a joke!), so it has been somewhat of a surprise to see the growth McKinley has made in liking the Phillies.  Remember when we first moved here and she just "played along" with the other fans at her school...(click here for a recap). Well, after three years of thinking about it and mulling it over in her mind, she has finally chosen the Phillies as HER pro baseball team.

Now, for the record...Milt is a Cubs fan.  This means he is commited to them through thin and thinner, but I think it has also taught him to have good healthy boundaries about not getting your hopes up if your team doesn't do well (and because we'd hate it if he wanted to jump off the nearest building each year when he sees how poorly they're doing).  To tell you the truth, I think Milt is secretly glad that McKinley has chosen a team that has a shot at being good and won't lead her down a dark path of depression each baseball season.

So when Milt got four tickets to a game from work, we decided to let McKinley bring her really great friend Katie along with the two of us to the game. The girls had a fantastic time cheering, eating, and laughing, plus it was a TERRIFIC game!  The Phillies played the Cardinals and it ended up being the game when the Phillies clinched the National League East Division Championship, so there were fireworks and a presentation and everything!  Plus, it was just a really fun game to watch.  It was close enough for the first few innings to keep everyone on the edge of their seats, and then a grand slam started the Phillies on a scoring frenzy!  And we have to admit, we thought we were getting to see the future World Series champs play...we just didn't realize that it would end up being the Cardinals! Don't worry, McKinley was fine with the Phillies losing in the first round -- she already has learned to have very healthy boundaries with her sports teams (so far!).

And yes, Milt was the ONLY person in the stand decked out in BYU gear!  It was the same day as the BYU/UTAH game, and he was not wearing red for ANYTHING!