Baseball Buddies

The last part of their "Make a Splash" summer reading program 'gift' was lawn tickets to a baseball game. The tickets were only good for summer reading games, which were September 3, 4 or 5. Knowing we had Dutch Wonderland and other picnics this weekend, we opted to go Friday night. Joshua is picking out his own clothes these days, so he chose his shark shirt and shorts. But, Caleb wore an Atlanta Braves t-shirt, Daddy's favorite baseball team, with his stylin' plaid shorts. I also told both boys that baseball hats are worn to baseball games. Here are the boys dressed and ready to go!

Since they looked so cute in their hats, I took a few more pictures before leaving. Joshua is holding up our tickets to the play areas and the free field passes, etc. (Thanks again, Jeanne!)

Before the game, I had asked Shawn to pick up more lettuce on his way home from work so we could eat salads once again for dinner. He replied that he was taking us out. What?!?! I was genuinely surprised when he told me that he had a good coupon for Q'doba, a restaurant I had once frequented before I was pregnant with Joshua. For $10 we fed our family of four, which is pretty impressive. Joshua took his hat off in the car on the way there, but Caleb left his on. We thought he looked so cute!

When we arrived at the ball game, we parked by our church and walked up, but what we had were not tickets but vouchers we needed to exchange for tickets. So, we got in the mile long line. When we finally reached the door, Joshua whined to me and said "Mommy, please, I want to go to the baseball game!" I whispered back to him, "Honey, we're going to the game, but we need to wait in line for our tickets and have patience." The man holding the door for us looked at the Bean's big blue eyes and followed us in, handing Joshua a baseball!!!! This is his fourth game ever, and he's gotten a ball three out of four games. Not too shabby! I couldn't believe his luck! Shawn, too, was amazed. I think it's because he's so stinkin' cute, but then again, I'm completely biased. Poor Caleb who had been waiting patiently with Daddy was sad that he didn't get a ball. Shawn said that the guy probably thought Joshua was a huge baseball fan since he was begging to see the game as we were waiting in line. Either way, the Bean was thrilled!

We thought Caleb looked super cute in his hat, so we grabbed a few more pictures of him with his big cheeks, bigger blue eyes, and super cute baseball outfit. This was his first game, after all!

The lawn was packed with people, but that was okay. Caleb isn't known to sit still, so we went right to the playground which wasn't crowded yet. The boys began playing right away! Then we went and exchanged our passes for their wristbands, which allowed Joshua on the bounce slide (Caleb was too little, and Joshua barely made the height requirement), both boys onto the carousel and access to the other things like the baseball pitching area. Daddy helped them below.

Here we are enjoying the carousel. I thought I would be holding them on the horses but then they chose the seat.

The crowds got rougher as the night wore on. Caleb was on the little bridge and some older kids started jumping on it, sending him and another small boy flying into the air. He was terrified and couldn't get down because it kept moving. Eventually I was able to help him off, but he was still shaken up (literally and figuratively). We decided it was time to go. Joshua, on the other hand, decided this was the perfect time to beg to watch the actual game. After all, we hadn't seen any baseball yet! We tried to tell him to sit on the lawn, but he was used to our front row seats. Why would we sit behind all these people on the grass when we typically have rock-star seats? He was not thrilled, so we walked out. It was after their typical bedtime anyway since the game didn't start until 7 pm and we had already played a long while.

The boys enjoyed their play time, and the tickets that were given to us have three more possible games left to go see with passes to get into. Shawn said he'd try to take Joshua one last time if the timing worked. That said, I think it may be a night that he's away for work. We'll see!