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!!