Ballpark

I can not remember a Saturday from my childhood not being at the ball park. No, really. Every. Saturday. For years. And years. And years. Even when I was too young to be playing, I can remember being woke out of bed and carried to the car to get to my sister's early games on time. I started t-ball young and by the time I turned 9 and we started to play "travel ball", every weekend from then on out was spent at the ball park until I was 19 years old. Four hour practices, two a-days, 5 games in a row, washing uniforms late at night to be worn the next day, packing lunches to last the day, it all came with Saturday's at the ball park. I enjoyed it then, but looking back, I miss it more than I would have imagined.

Luckily I married someone who spent his youth the exact same way. But, to be clear he was a soccer player and spent his Saturday's at the "field" rather than the "ballpark". When we first got married we would find ourselves relaxing at the park, any park, on Saturday's just in hopes of catching a game; any one's game. We just loved to watch and it was what we knew. Then when our nieces and nephews started to get old enough to play in organized sports on Saturday's we would catch ourselves traveling 25 miles to see a game. We would race up and down the sidelines and yell behind the backstop like all the other crazy parents.

Finally, Dax has reached the age where he gets to play sports on Saturday's. Hooray! Austin coaches and Wyatt and I sit in my hot pink beach chair being his biggest cheerleaders! I try not to get to intense and yell too loudly from the sidelines, but it's hard. I definitely recognize a piece of my dad in my blood now that I am the parent. Dax played soccer last season and now we are starting t-ball. It's my favorite part of spring. Forget that AZ can't decide if we need A/C or the heater, flip flop or Ugg's, sunscreen or umbrella's, we are enjoying what spring here has to offer. Baseball and Spring Training!

We live by the Angel's Spring Training facility, so we headed out to the season opener a few weeks ago with my entire family and of course...wore our Dodger Blue! We collected some autographs, got a ball, sat in the grass, had a picnic and cheered. It is what Saturday's are all about in my book. And the most important part of that equation? Being with my family. And I have the best one.