You Gotta Love These Guys!

A few months ago, my sister's father-in-law suggested she and I go to a baseball game together. The Mariners were coming to DC to play the Nationals, and he thought we would enjoy going. It wasn't until we were about to buy the tickets that we understood that he wanted to buy the tickets for us and that he wanted to get us really good seats! This meant a huge change in plans for me-- I'd been planning on buying my own ticket as well as tickets for my kids and Craig, which meant we were going to be getting the cheapest thing we could find. Suddenly, instead of looking for cheap tickets, I needed to arrange babysitting!

After only a little bit of begging, Craig agreed to watch all five kids on the condition that his parents come and help him out a bit (understandable, since Bentley is the oldest kid there, and the group included two babies! That's a lot for any one person!). And Natalie and I were off!

We did, indeed, have fabulous seats, and I had to take a whole bunch of pictures to document this fact. This was easily the closest I have ever sat at a ball game, and it was great being able to see everything so well!

And I'll admit it: it was really awesome having a break from the kids. I enjoyed being able to ride the metro without having to navigate with strollers, without having to hold someone's hand or have them sit on my lap, without having a lug a diaper bag around or worry about who needed to go potty. In fact, Natalie and I just sat and enjoyed the ENTIRE game without having to get up for ANY of those reasons! Crazy, right?

The sad part was that the Mariners were ahead the entire game, and then in the bottom of the ninth, the Nationals rallied to win it. That was kind of heart-breaking, I have to admit. But I finally decided that, other than those last ten minutes, we'd had a fabulous time and I wasn't going to let one lousy loss ruin my wonderful evening.

It was a great night.

Thanks, Mark, for such a great evening! And thanks Craig, Tom, and Donna for watching the kids for us and making it all possible!!!

Arriving at the ball park. The metro directions made us nervous because it said our stop was half a mile away from the stadium, but that was totally wrong-- it was more like one block away! Phew!

Relishing our awesome seats

Ichiro runs by as batting practice ends-- too bad we weren't quick enough to ask for an autograph!
(We also hadn't thought to bring a pen, so maybe it was just as well...)

So excited!

And so hungry!

Capturing Ichiro's bizarre-- but effective!-- batting stance

I was proud of this action shot that I captured. I love my camera!

One of the most bizarre entertainment things I've ever seen. In Seattle they have an animated boat race up on the diamond vision (the hydra race). Here, they had this "Presidential Race"! Weird, huh? But pretty funny!

Happy campers. This was before the 9th inning.

And another good action shot.

I sure love the Mariners! Next we'll win for sure, boys!