Golf N' Stuff

We have a miniature golf course in town. You can see the windmill and the castle from the freeway and Riley loves pointing them out as we pass by. We thought it might be fun to take him there. Jim and I always have a friendly bet when we play miniature golf, and it took playing two holes before we realized that it was going to be impossible for us to keep score. After I hit my ball at the first hole, Nicholas ran down the green, picked up my ball and brought it back. At the second hole, all it took was Jim just placing his ball down on the black mat for Nicholas to quickly pick it up and run with it down the green.

Jim showed Riley how to hold the golf club, but after doing this once, he remembered when he was a kid, his dad would do this, and Jim would get mad, and want to do it his own way, so after that, he let Riley hold his club any way he wanted. After all, he wanted this to be fun for him.

After these first two holes, we let the kids do whatever they wanted with the balls and clubs, within reason of course. For Riley, he'd started off each hole correctly, but after a few swings, resorted to basketball and would finish throwing the ball down the green. Then a few times he even switched to soccer, and tried to kick the ball in the hole. For Nicholas, he was mostly content running after the ball, picking it up and then placing it in the hole.

A few times Nicholas would make an attempt at swinging the club.

It looks like he might actually hit the ball in this picture, but he didn't. He got frustrated, gave Jim the club, picked up both the white ball and another ball you can't see, and placed them in the hole.

They both loved the holes like the one below, where you dropped the ball at the top...

...and then ran somewhere else to see the ball come out of the hole.

There were a few times that Riley actually hit the ball in the hole with his club. This is not one of those instances, but he started to throw his hands in the air and cheer when the ball went in.

another one of their favorite holes

After our round of golf, we played a few games.

The outing ended for some the way it always does. So exhausted from a busy day that it was hard to keep our eyes open during the ride home. (I referance Nicholas, but I am also refering to Jim and myself).

We were thinking ahead and knew Nicholas would want his own ball, so we brought him his own from home to use. We were betting on him loosing it there and we're actually surprised it made it home with us.