Opening Day Holiday!

Off to Cincy for some baseball, so excited!! Opening Day weekend started with a five hour drive to Cincy. Luckily, I scored a ride with Dave (aka Scorecard Dave or Spock) in his sweet 350Z!! We left early and of course, had to stop a couple of times because I insisted on getting a couple of Diet Cokes :) I also learned during this time that Dave seriously does not eat during the day. He always told me that but I never believed him! Being a girl who likes to snack on road trips, unfortunately he had to put up with me and my Combos for several hours. I hope the thought of those cheese filled pretzels didn't make him too hungry!! When we stopped at our second rest stop, my vast knowledge of cars came in handy when we noticed a couple of girls struggling while trying to change a tire. I made Dave stop and I proved myself useful by changing their tire for them. Good deed of the day, check!

We finally made it to our hotel in Kentucky and Ken and Joe beat us there by about an hour, which makes sense because I've driven with Ken before, it's a little scary! Once we got to the hotel, we had a couple of beers and headed to the Great American Ballpark!

The game was brutal, our boys lost :( After the game, we decided to drown our Cubs sorrows (after Ken almost got into a fight) at Hofbrauhaus, which was a blast!!! We even got Dave to stand up (he insists he didn't dance) on the bench! The beers were huge too, which is super helpful after a Cubs loss.

Delic!!

Back to GAB for game 2, where Brad and Eric joined us, yay!! It was a fun game hanging with the boys. I'm sure a lot of you know about this, but for those who don't, we all love to eat peanuts during ball games. Since most of the people we sit with are boys, no one should be too surprised about how quickly asking to pass the peanuts turns dirty. Boys watching a baseball game can come up with a lot of dirty ways to talk about peanuts, lemme tell ya! Eric is learning because he's not living in Chicago yet, so he tried to say something dirty using the word nut but said ball instead, which made it even dirtier!! It was hysterical but also awesome because it started our new fun weekend game. Whenever any of us was going to say the word ball, we had to use the word nut instead. I learned during this game I use the word baseball A LOT. This had to quickly change to basenut, which was interesting, especially in public! Because all of us messed up so much, we had to take shots at the bar after the Cubs won!!!

In between the win and the shots, we actually had quite an interesting time at the Westin in downtown Cincinnati. We decided to venture down there to see if we could see our boys and pass along congratulations for the big W. We were milling around in the lobby, clearly not guests, when in walks Carlos Zambrano!!! Brad was super excited because he'd actually spent time with Big Z at Shedd Aquarium taking him and his family on a tour. So Brad walked right up to him and said hi and reminded him who he was. Carlos totally remembered him and said it was really nice to see him. Such a nice guy! Even nicer when hotel security came up to us after Z walked away asking us to please wait outside if we'd like to try and get autographs. While we were informing her that we actually weren't trying to get autographs, we were just heading out, Z walks back, puts his arm around Brad and Eric and asks the security guard what the problem was. She explained it to him and he said not to worry about any of us, we're fine and we can stay in the lobby as long as we want. Z totally had our back, it was awesome!!!!!! Of course, as soon as Z and the security guard walk away, who walks in but Ron Santo!!!!! We've met Ronnie a couple of times and he's always been extremely nice and usually very chatty. He looked exhausted so we didn't want to bother him too much, but he did take a minute and say hi. We reminded him that we've met him a couple of times and the last time we saw him, I still lived in Las Vegas and Brad was still living in Cali. We told him that we finally both moved to Chicago which had always been the goal for each of us. We're pretty sure he had no idea what we were talking about but he was way too nice to say that, so he just said he was so happy for us and hopefully the Cubbies will start plaing a little better. Such a nice guy, I don't think there's anyone who loves the Cubs more than Ronnie. After we had our shots, I met Dave for dinner where I had some of THE BEST BBQ ever. It was delicious, expecially my leftovers the next morning :)

The game Sunday was a bummer, we lost again :( After the game, I was just anxious to get home to go get all of my tickets!!!!!! Every day before Opening Day, we have a pre-party at Ron's house. Last year's pre-OD party was my first and I had quite a blast, especially after a full day partying with Mac!!!!

My favorite party buddy and I last year:

I missed you a ton this year Mac!!

This year was going to be different, Roger, Shaun and Mac were not in town and I needed to get some much needed rest. Opening Day, or New year's Day as we all like to call it, finally arrived and it was completely worth the wait!! Everyone was there and it felt like we all never left. The weather was much nicer than last year, I even got a little color in my face!! It was also Karen's birthday and the Cubs got a Win, so just an amazingly fun day!

Here's Cher and I in the front row

And the birthday girl and me:

An amazing start of the season, let's just hope the Cubs keep getting those W's!!!!

Spring break = Spring training!

Wow, what a great spring break! 9 full days of awesomeness!! The first couple of days I spent with my dad and his wife in Silver City, New Mexico. I got to shoot my first shotgun, learned how to play Wii bowling, and also got to spend quality time with my dad, which I haven’t done probably in ten years. It was a really great start to vacation J 

After that, we drove into Tucson where I met one of my best buddies, Andy, and we drove up to the Cubs spring training site of Mesa, AZ. Finally, after a couple of years off, I made it back to the lovely Mezona Inn!! Once checked in, we wandered down to the cellar, where I showed off my sweet new cowboy boots! Thursday was pool day, so I worked all day long on my base sunburn. Yep, I insisted on not wearing sunscreen, believing that my time in Vegas made me immune to it. Oops. Oh well, onto baseball!!

The first game was Friday afternoon and we got to sit in Ron and Karen’s SWEET front row seats. We got to see the Cubs Opening Day line-up, which was cool, except for the Cubbies losing, pretty much because of stupid Carlos Marmol. Mostly, Andy just kept bringing Kim and me these awesomely huge import beers. We goofed off the whole game and took some really fun pictures. He's definitely one of my favorite people to watch a game with! So, all in all, fun game and good start to my baseball watching season, oh, except for the L.

The second game was also at Hohokam where I had a lawn seat. Tailgating was awesome that day, just goofing around and drinking a little bit in beautiful weather. Luckily, the boys (Ken, Jack and Joe Keefer) went in before me and let me sit in some sweet lawn seats with them. Hanging out with the boys, Gayle, George, Al and Miriam was so much fun! Barb came and sat out with me on the lawn too. Love that girl!

Everyone was pretty tired so a couple of people were taking naps, but I won't name names.

Unfortunately, the game ended in a tie, which I guess is better than a loss. Pool time started after the game, where we had a rousing game of poolympics, where I totally won. It was close until we decided on the last competition being a cannonball contest. I killed at this one because my 7 and 9 year old competitors do not have nearly as big of a butt as I do. Big butt = poolympics winner!!! Yay me!!

Third and last game was Sunday in Peoria, Cubs vs. Mariners. I needed a Win so I could at least see one spring training W! Before we went to the game, I tagged along with Ken, Gayle and the boys to Hohokam to watch the Cubbies do batting practice. I was totally unaware that they did this but it was so fun to watch! There's no way that there were more than 20 people in the ballpark and we wandered in and sat front row and watched our boys warm up! It was really neat because I could literally hear everything they were saying. Kevin Millar was making fun of our short LSU boys, which was hysterical. Unfortunately, he won't be with the Cubs anymore because he got cut :( Joe killed it with the autographs, he even got Greg Maddux's, which was awesome! After we watched the team get on the bus, we headed over to Peoria to hang in the lawn again. Traffic was horrible so luckily Al and Miriam saved us some room on the lawn. Once we finally made it, it was super hot with the sun beating down on us. My sunburn was still in full effect so I had to cover up to prevent myself from being in A LOT of pain. I walked around the park a couple of times with the boys and it was a gorgeous park. Demp started the game and we led 1-0 in the 7th inning. Demp loaded the bases with no outs and then proceeded to strike out the side!!!!!!! It was awesome and just what I needed to see to get pumped up for baseball! We left after watching that (luckily, the score stayed the same so I got to see my first win!) and went to an awesome bbq restaurant called Thee Pitts Again. Delicious! Then, it was back to the pool! I was so sad to leave but at least I got to come home to some beautiful Chicago weather :)

Such an amazing trip with so many awesome people! Can't wait to do it again next year :)

Oh, and congrats to Ellie and Jeremiah on their engagement!! Can't wait for the wedding!!

First game of the 2010 season tomorrow!

Welcome to my Chicago Cubs 2010 blog!! I know the first thing you must be wondering is why I’m starting my blog on March 25th, when Chicago Cubs home games don’t start until April 12th, and I will tell you why! This blog will be chronicling every game I go to during the 2010 season, including travelling to away games as well as spring training games, the first of which I will be going to tomorrow, March 26th. I can’t believe I’m finally here, in lovely Arizona, about to watch my first baseball game in the year 2010. Can’t wait! Before I end my second official blog post, I’d love to wish my favorite (not because he’s my only!) brother a wonderful and happy 25th birthday. Enjoy it Bob, 25 is awesome!!!! Love you :)

Be back soon to tell you about my first game of the season!

My first blog post!

My name is Shannon and if you haven’t realized it yet, I am a huge Cubs fan. I moved to Chicago in June of 2008 from the lovely city of Las Vegas, where I lived my entire life until I became an official Chicagoan at the age of 25. I fell in love with the city of Chicago and with my favorite baseball team on a trip here in February of 2002. Although it was freezing, like nothing I had ever felt before as a Vegas native, I was hooked and knew that one day, I would call Chicago home. It took 6 long years but I finally made it and have loved every second of living here. I am truly blessed by having such wonderful friends in the bleachers. We all sit in Section 303, and the smaller group of 20 and 30 something’s that I’m a part of (we call ourselves NextGen) sits in the very front row of that section. I couldn’t ask for a better seat in the house!!! This is how I’ve spent my last two summers and hope to continue to do so for as long as I live here. Hopefully this will finally be the year and I’ll be front row left field to witness it!