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!!!!
