Go Dodgers!

This weekend Austin and I went to a Dodger’s game. Everyone else in our group may say that we went to a Diamondback’s game, but when you grow up in Southern California, there’s an unwritten rule that you will always root for your California team no matter where you live; whether it’s college football, MLB or the NBA. Once you’re a fan of a team in CA you will be until the end of time.

A few weeks ago a friend of ours called us up and invited us to the game. She had reserved the Owner’s Suite at the Diamondback’s stadium for her husband’s birthday and was inviting about 25 of us from the neighborhood to come along. We couldn’t wait! We knew everyone would be rooting for the Dbacks of course, so just to have a little more fun, I ran to the good ol’ local Wal-Mart and bought ourselves two brand new Dodgers shirt to have a little fun with everyone.

If you remember a few months ago, this was the same couple that had the amazing Halloween party in October and gave away iPod shuffles, so we knew it was going to be a fun group and a great time. We met at their house at 3:30 in our bright royal blue shirts and instantly were heckled. “How many straight games have the Dodgers lost?” Ohhh, that’d be 8. “How many games are the Dodgers behind the Dbacks?” That’d be 4 ½. “What was the score of last nights game?” Dbacks 9 and Dodgers 2. Yes, it stung a little….okay a lot, but we were sure we would bring good luck.

We carpooled to the stadium and lucky for us, it was Hispanic Heritage Day at the ballpark (funny, I know) and they were giving out “Los Dbacks” (notice the Los because of Hispanic Heritage Day :)) hats with hair Velcro'd into to look like their star Eric Byrnes who also has a show on Fox. To make the heckling even grander, they were also handing out huge red signs that read BEAT LA and the group definitely took advantage of that. Austin loved the trash talk, but up to this point he really didn’t have much to defend our team.

The cute little lady escorted us to our suite. Amazing! Couches, 5 TV’s, all you can eat, all you can drink, Haagen Daz ice cream (to die for) and great seats above home plate. Tina, the birthday boy’s cute wife, had Diamondback hats for everyone as well, and even though we had on “those ugly t-shirts” she still shared two with us. The night got really fun when Manny Ramirez homered in the third inning. We stood up and danced and everyone tried to hold their signs in front of our faces. The Diamondbacks answered right back in the bottom of the third with a run of their own. We heard the cheers and trash talk loud and clear. It’s kinda not fun being 2 Dodgers against 28 Diamondback fans. Lucky for us, Ramiez homered again later in the game, and for fear of sounding like ESPN for too long, the Dodgers came out with their first victory in quite some time. We won!! The final score ended up being 6 to 2 and we attributed this sweet little victory to two little fans sporting Wal-mart Dodger shirts!

Austin was psyched (how long has it been since you heard that word?). He really was going crazy. The rest of the group were good sports and in the end we took a big group picture, and even though they were all supposed to be holding their BEAT LA signs and crying with Austin and I standing tall and proud in the middle, you can tell we all had a great time.

Just to rub it in a little more, Austin thinks he’s going to wear his Dodger shirt under his shirt and tie today to Church. Nothing like a little sportsmanship! For me, I’m just glad I had a fun distraction from leaving Wyatt home with his first official babysitters (yes, we had two!) Look at these two in their new Eric Byrnes hats!!

"It's this face that keeps me outta trouble"---Wyatt

The Beach

Finally. It was finally here. It was finally time to go. It was finally time to spend a week at the Beach. Finally….finally…finally…

We plan for our annual beach trip in San Clemente for an entire year. We go each summer, almost 50 of us, and camp for a week. We pick a theme for the next year at the end of each week. This year’s theme was Superheros, and we go all out! We even have committee’s for everyone to pitch in and make the week a memorable one. We have food, decorations, activities, service project, “convenient store” and reservations.

This year the site was decorated like Gotham City, with murals of skyline vinyl table cloths tied to the fences to give us the feel of the city. There were blow up’s of Spider-man, Batman and Superman surrounding all the picnic tables. We had a great menu with lots of yummy food and fun activities for the kids to make capes, dress up like Superheros and run an obstacle course and some fun trivia games and even a Boggle tourney for the adults.

We even added a few extra days to the trip to visit HB and go to Disneyland.

Here are some highlights:

--We met my best friend since kindergarten, Ashley, in HB to start the week off. It had been years since we had seen her and we spent the day downtown enjoying the sun and each other’s company. I think I’ll refer to her as Aunt Ashley from now on; the boys adored her and she was so cute with them. Dax loved walking down the pier and watching the fisherman and surfers. Ashley even joined us for one of our days at Disneyland, which was really fun!

--Although Wyatt’s bottom two teeth broke while we were at the beach, no one would have known. He slept so great; I think the crashing waves were like music to him. He loved playing in the sand and he had no problem splashing in the cold water. He happily wore his hat at only got a little sun-kissed on his nose the first day. He was a great mini-Spider-man and loved all the kids playing with him. He loved the baths we gave him in the outdoor tub-like sink at the bathrooms. Someone said he probably had the most sleep out of any of the campers that week, and I think they were right. He was such a good baby!!

--Dax on the other hand had a little tougher of a week. He got a crazy diaper rash that really put him on edge. I don’t blame him… A diaper rash + sand does not = a happy camper. This threw him off with the majority of everything. He would hide out in grandma and grandpa’s trailer for as long as we would let him. He thought the waves were “scary” and was perfectly happy playing in the shade in the sand. He wasn’t happy taking showers and cried every time we put his trunks on. This carried over to Disneyland. He wouldn’t even ride the carousel. Miraculously, after two days of being at the park, he did stand next to Mickey Mouse for a picture.

Good thing next month we will be back in California at the beach in Oceanside for some better attempts at pictures on the beach and Dax semi-close to the ocean because this trip was a total bust at a family picture. Cross your fingers for us, because if not, you'll all be seeing this picture in your Christmas cards. Oh help us please!