a day at the museum

If you live in Louisville, near Louisville, or ever visit Louisville, one attraction you have to take in is the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. Well I qualify for all of the above, and this past Saturday was my first visit to see the world's largest bat (please see picture above) and where the official bat of Major League Baseball is made.

For the past few months when I ask Wilhelm where he is going (if he is just aimlessly walking around or we're playing pretend) he'll respond by saying, "i'm going to work."

So I follow up with the questions, "What do you do?"

And he says, "Uh, I'm a baseball player. I hit the balls."

Therefore, Alan & I are convinced, or maybe praying, that he is the next child prodigy and will someday be in the major leagues himself. We thought since the Smithsonian was offering FREE admission to the museum Saturday it would be the ideal time to go, and continue to nurture the seed (dream) that has been planted in our offspring.
After picking Alan up from the airport, returning from The Great American Beer Festival, we headed downtown and hung out outside by the world's largest bat & took some pics. Alan's first father's day we gave him a book with bizarre national landmarks to take road trips to, this book included the Slugger bat. We've done a pitiful job taking pictures next to any of the featured landmarks during our travels, but i vowed (as i always do!) this is the start of something that we will do from this point forward!

The day included a short movie, factory tour and time in the museum.
This is Alan's amazing hand pointing to his childhood idol, Cal Ripken Jr., name on the museum's hall of fame wall of signatures. An absolutely legal thing to do.

Below is a picture i snapped in the factory, a slightly frowned upon thing to do, but i couldn't pass up the opportunity to capture something from the most interesting part of the day. This is where they store the pieces of wood & bats for major league players. From my hip i inconspicuously took this shot (which includes a Cubbie for all my Chicago friends). I tried to break the rules a few more times, at stations throughout the factory (it truly was neat.) but Alan informed me that he didn't want to get kicked off the tour. I'm still not convinced that they would have kicked me out, especially if i had summoned Wilhelm to cry, but i decided to keep the peace and put my camera away.*
*To clarify the tour guide stated that they didn't want pictures taken because they may distract the workers. At this location there were no workers, and that day there was just a skeleton crew working anyway.

After our tour this was Wilhelm's opportunity to show his stuff. He LOVED the batting cage. We are currently in planning for how to construct one of these in our house or at least somewhere on the property.By day's end he was exhausted and so were we. It was a terrific time had by all. Per Wilhelm, I think we are going to have to work on a baseball player costume for Halloween 2009. I'm just a mom trying to keep her little boy's dream alive!