For Duane

We've been talking about taking the kids bowling for the first time for awhile now. Amanda's cousin Alexis is staying with us a for a few days so we thought that that would be a good activity for all of us to go and do. We decided to stay in town and go to St. Croix Lanes since we had gotten a few "free games of bowling" coupons from the River Falls Days parade.

I checked out their website to double-check their hours a little while before we were going to leave. I noticed right away that Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings was going to be at the bowling alley for a few hours at the same time as we were going to be there. I'll admit, my first thought was, "Great, there's going to be a ton of people there and we won't be able to enjoy the bowling." Don't get me wrong, I'm a Packers fan and enjoy watching them, but not a die-hard. And since my kids aren't really old enough to care too much, I just hoped they would still have a good time bowling for the first time.

The bowling opened at 11:00 and the event was set to start at noon, so we were on the 7th frame or so when 12 o'clock rolled around. There was a nice turnout and a lot of Packers jerseys. Greg Jennings arrived and was introduced as being there to support a youth bowling league. He then spoke for a few minutes and said that he would try to mingle around with everyone, but he was here mainly for the kids. I was glad to see that he was a total class act. He immediately was going around and joking, high-fiving, hand-shaking, and bowling a frame here and there. There were a lot of nicely posed pictures with kids too.

Greg was moving over into the area where we were bowling and Amanda and I briefly conferred and agreed that if the kids got their picture taken with him, good, if not, not a big deal. There were a lot of people there who were really excited and there just to see him and so we didn't want to cut into their time. Well he did stop over by us and since my father-in-law (that's Duane) is a huge follower of sports and the Packers, I knew we should get a picture.



After a few snaps of the camera he stood by us for several minutes chatting. He asked about each of the kids and said how he's got two of his own too. He commented about us getting one of each, a boy and a girl, and that he's got two daughters. He said that the kids looked like Amanda and I joked that that was a good thing and he laughed and said that he hoped his daughters looked more like his wife too.

So in the end it was a really cool experience and it'll surely be a little more fun watching Packer games this upcoming season since we have that personal connection to a player.