Ava pointing to Ava.
Kaya, geez, will you stop the crying?
My lovely wife, Terry, and the girls.
PUMPKINS: After a fine weekend on Whidbey Island with the Grandparents, the Powell family stopped at a Pumpkin patch and did the cute little girls and pumpkin thing, you know…pumpkins pumpkins pumpkins cute cute cute.
Kaya, however, shore don’t like them pumpkin patches, as seen in this “Kaya crying with pumpkin” photo from the very first Notes blog post. Seems like she still has her pumkinphobia.
FAN APPRECIATION: That same morning, by serendipity, while having coffee and pastries at a local cafe, a man approached us and offered tickets to the Seattle Mariners baseball game on the last day of the season, Fan Appreciation Day. All children would get a gift. The seats, too, were prime, on the left field foul line, fifth row. Giddy-up! So we returned to Seattle, I dropped my wife and Kaya at home, and recorded the game.
I remember going to the Kingdome as a kid to Seattle Mariners promotions when they actually gave you something…a baseball bat, a ball, a helmet. Do you know what Ava & Gia got? A cheap Mariner Moose poster. Harumph! I guess the Mariners skimp so they can pay bozos like Milton Bradley and Casey Kotchman. However, despite the awful Mariners play I remain loyal, just as I would with friends and family. I don’t stop loving them because they have a bad year.
Gia and the “Baseball Princess”
THE BASEBALL PRINCESS: We arrived late, the game had started, and no sooner did we enter then a ball was hit our way, the ball girl (I told the girls she was a “Baseball Princess”) scooped it up and gave it to another girl in the first row. I told Ava & Gia maybe they could get a ball, and Gia and I went down to talk to the Baseball Princess (Ava was afraid and remained in her seat). The Baseball Princess promised Gia that she’d get the next one. Unfortunately, not one was hit her way the rest of the game. Gia probably asked over 500 times when she would get her ball. Despondent when we left sans ball, she kept asking, but hopefully the cotton candy and other treats pacified.
Kaya, you love baths, don’t you? Now we just gotta cure your fear of pumpkins.
AVA & GIA ON TV: So we get home and I go to the TV and find us on the recording. The girls loved seeing themselves on the screen. Ever since going Hollywood, though, during the baseball playoffs and World Series, Gia thinks she’s on TV somewhere in the crowd, and bombards me with, “Dad, where are we sitting?” I tell her, “The game’s in New York. We’re not there.” Two minutes later she says, “Dad, where are we sitting?”
KAYA, BATHS, & PUMPKINS: Kaya, like most babies, or at least baby Ava & baby Gia, hated baths. She just cried everytime she got stuck in a tub. But she’s learned to love baths…as the photo on the right shows.
Happy Hallowe’en to All!
Photo of the Month: Khutwa, Oman
Notes of a Sexist Stay-at-home Father 
