Braves Game

Tonight some last minute plans found our family of four heading to Turner Field for the Braves game.  Just before 6 PM the girls and I were still wet from playing in the sprinkler in the front yard.  We had thrown on clothes and were in the car on the way to pick up pizza for dinner when I got a call from Robby saying he had 4 tickets to the Braves game that started at 7:30 PM.  My first thoughts were: we aren't even really dressed, it's dinnertime, Harper didn't nap well today, we are leaving the house bright and early in the morning, and we don't need to be out late tonight.  I'm so glad those thoughts only lasted for about 2 seconds and I quickly thought about how much fun it would be to take the girls to their first ever Braves game.  We hurried home, got dressed in our red and blue and headed to pick Robby up from work.  

Handley was beside herself with excitement to go the game and she really didn't even know what to expect.  She's been to a few other professional sports games, but never a baseball game.  She kept telling Harper in the ride there, "Harper, this is going to be SO fun." She was also asking all sorts of questions.  She wanted to know if the people playing the game were grown-ups, what all they had at the game, who would bet there, if there was food, how would we cheer, if we would sit up high or down low, and she wanted to know if Daddy was a Brave. Ha! We taught her how to do the tomahawk chop on the way there so she was ready to cheer when we got to our seats. 

When we arrived we were happy to find ourselves in seats just behind home plate.  Handley was really into the game.  Right away she wanted to know what color our team was and watched pretty closely as batters came up to the plate. Every time the crowd would cheer she would stand up and clap her hands.  If she happened to look over and notice that I was not cheering she would prompt me to do so.  It was so fun watching her.  She also loved all of the food.  We had chicken fingers, a pretzel, popcorn, and dip-n-dots.  Every time a vendor would walk by she'd ask, "what do they have to eat?"  

Harper did great too.  She was squirmy at first, but settled down and was happy to sit on my lap and take in all the sights.  She kept looking around at everything and even though it's like sensory overload in there, she loved it.  Harper would also take cues from others and start clapping at appropriate times. :-) 

We actually stayed a lot longer than I thought we would make it.  We sat through the first 4 innings and then made our way back to the car.  Just before leaving the park we stopped at the kid's zone.  Both girls were tickled to death running around the bases in there and Handley even battled the big kids to make her way down the giant slide before riding on Daddy's shoulders back to the car.  She must have said at least 18 times, "That was so much fun!" 

I couldn't believe they both stayed awake the entire ride home and since they were wide-eyed and bushy-tailed when we got home I just had to go ahead and give them a bath to get all the ball-park grime and sweat off of them.  Even if it was 10 PM.  

I hope this is just the first of many games for us.  I remember going to the Braves games when I was a little girl and just loving it.  I'm happy that tonight we got to pass along that fun to our girls.