2009 NU Family Day at Fenway

By K.J. Cardinal

Ever since Anna was born, I have been dying to take her to Fenway. The perfect opportunity finally posed itself on Saturday, so we jumped at the chance to partake in the 2009 Northeastern University Family Day at Fenway.

Northeastern is a sponsor of the Red Sox and I'm sure that partnership is somehow responsible for this family day. Anyway, the tickets were only $7 for adults and children were free, so it was a no-brainer.

I am SO glad that we went. We showed up right at noon when the gates opened and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

They had a free photo station set up where you'd pose in front of a green screen and then they'd put your photo on a ticket (pictured right). They actually gave us four printed tickets and that was probably my favorite part of the day because it's such a cool keepsake.

After getting our photo taken, we meandered around for a while and the two big hits of the day for Anna were CoCo the monkey and Wally the Green Monster.

CoCo the monkey (pictured left) was awesome. This little monkey was trained to do everything from catch and throw a football to dunk a basketball.

Anna thought CoCo was one of the coolest things she's ever seen. She would squeal and laugh when he'd jump around and throw the ball. It was so cute.

It probably costs a pants-load to get CoCo to come to a private party, but I got the guys card anyway and we'll see. I can't really see anyone, young or old, not getting a kick out of this little guy. He was pretty neat.

After CoCo, we walked over to get our picture taken with Wally. When we approached the "Green Monster", Anna wanted NOTHING to do with him. She was clenched to my arm so tight and didn't even want me to bend down so we could talk to him.

So, we didn't get the perfect photo op, but Angie snapped this photo at right that pretty much says it all.

Immediately when we walked away, however, it was like Wally was Anna's new best friend. She kept on saying his name and pointing to the direction where he was stationed. So, we had to make a few trips back and forth to see Wally.

Anna is still enamored with the big green fella and I'm sure that this blog post will get LOTS of hits by me alone as I'll have to pull it up a few times a day to show Anna this photo... I actually just printed a copy of it for her to avoid having to have it on my computer screen all day :)

People started to file into the park as 1 p.m. approached, so we jumped in line to get our photo with the 2007 World Series trophy and then we were going to leave to avoid the crowd. Before we could wrap up the photo-op though, Anna had clearly had enough.

It was time for her nap and she wanted to go watch people play Wii Baseball while we were in line, so the photo of us with the trophy is pretty comical because Anna's crying. I'm sure when she's older she'll spin it that those were tears of joy for experiencing Fenway for the first time, but we all know that wasn't quite the case.


Notice the airbrush tattoo that she has on her left leg... it's little paw prints.

Anyway, the day was so much. We love nothing more than taking Anna to new places and showing her new things. She's such a curious little sponge these days and the cutest thing ever, so her reaction to everything makes us so happy.

I'm sure that the NU Family Day at Fenway will be an annual rite of passage from this year on.