To our little caboose

For 25 years, beginning long before we ever knew each other your Mom and I have called this place our summer home. We've laughed here, we've cried here, we've lost our voices yelling like maniacs here. We've high-fived and celebrated with strangers we didn't know.

Your oldest sister has been coming here for six years. Your youngest sister four. But you have only been able to call this place home for two years. Two quick, short years. And frankly that makes us pretty dang sad. Yes we'll soon have a new ballpark to make a whole slew of new memories in, but it'll be a strange feeling.

So tonight, for the first, and last time ever, we had father/son night at the Ballpark. The Temple, as Mike Rhyner so affectionately calls it.

(I'm going to miss that view at dusk on evenings like tonight, by the way.)

We watched approximately three at-bats tonight in actual seats. That was about it. (The top and bottom of the first inning lasted like 17 hours anyway.) And really, I was okay with it. The rest of the time, we wandered the ballpark, taking in everything soon to be gone at the end of this week. And the evening became filled with a lot of this:

And this: 

And warning you to be careful. And telling you not to climb on things. And cringing as you ran too far ahead of me getting dangerously close to stairs. You know, normal things for a two year old.

And like the article Evan Grant wrote earlier this week, the ballpark really is just a building. Sure it's one that many, many people have a million emotional ties to but in the end its just a building made out of brick and steel. And I have to tell you, Jack: Sadly, you won't remember any of these moments inside this big beautiful ballpark made out of brick and steel that you've experienced for the last two years.

But we'll always have these pictures from tonight.

(Most of them of the back of your head because you're running away from me)

And many others that your Mom has taken of you and your sisters. And we'll talk about all the fun we've had in this big beautiful ballpark made out of brick and steel.

And I'll be so, so glad to have all these memories.