A perfect day

Yesterday didn't start well - Elle woke up almost two hours earlier than usual ... and didn't go back to sleep. There were brief naps, cluster feeding and fussiness (on her part and mine). I was running on less than five hours of broken sleep, and we had a lot planned for the day. Tim and I hardly ever have days off together, and they usually end up crammed with errands, chores and end with us collapsing to watch a movie on the couch.

But today we had plans to enjoy the day. Be a family. Not be bogged down by laundry, dishes or grocery shopping.

And it was glorious.

We had an 80-degree, breezy and sunny day. After Elle's rocky morning, we headed out to attend out first spring training game of the season. The team I'll always root for, the Pittsburgh Pirates, hold camp in our city, and there is a deal this spring for county residents to get in to Monday games for $5. We took advantage of the deal and arrived just as the national anthem was being sung. 

Elle was hungry and insisted on eating the Ergo.

Decked out in her Pirates gear. (Thanks, Aunt Marti!)

"Daddy, my rattle is waayyyy cooler than those baseball players."

Elle was great - lasting through seven innings before the heat and her tiredness got to her a bit. We went home to give her a chance to nap. While we were home, I got a very special phone call from my uncle, who let me speak with my grandma, who isn't in the best of health right now. It meant the world to me to be able to talk to her and hear her voice, and it really made my perfect day even better.

After Elle woke up, we headed to the park. There are certain "first things" that we want to do together, and with our crazy schedules, we wanted to take advantage of the chance to both experience the "first time to take Elle to the park and swing."

The park we go to has three play areas, and the one we headed to was deserted. We started on the swings and played around on the other equipment.

"I'm a natural, guys!"

She loved being pushed:

"We've gotta do this more often!"

Family fun :)

And after that fun, we were hungry, so we came home to have dinner. Well, first we got the mail, which included my last W-2 that we were waiting for, so Tim filed our taxes and THEN joined us for dinner :)

Elle LOVES yogurt. She dabbled in carrots, chicken
and toast as well, but she couldn't eat the yogurt fast enough.

Elle was covered in sunscreen and yogurt at that point, so I gave her a bath, nursed her and listened to her babble happily as she drifted off to sleep. I edited the photos from our day, caught up on some e-mails and crossed a few things off my to-do list (OK, full disclosure: I also added a few items to my to-do list). Tim went to the gym, I did a Pilates DVD (one of my favorites is a prenatal Pilates video that can be done without adjusting for the limitations of different trimesters - but the instructor is 36 weeks pregnant in the DVD, and I realized it makes me feel skinny, haha) and then we ... well, collapsed to watch a movie.

But it was a perfect day. One that happens far too infrequently, one that wore us out and one that made us stop and think about how lucky we are.

It's spring training time!

Tim and I took advantage of some great weather to head to Pirate City earlier this week. (It was baby's first spring training experience! I admit I *did* look at Pirates onesies.) We went on Monday, which was the day before the full squad was required to report for workouts, but a lot of the team was already there.

We watched the pitchers and catchers during some drills, and then we watched a few of the players take batting practice. It was a really windy day, and there weren't a lot of people out watching the team.

Spring training is the perfect place to encounter snowbirds, too. Tim recognized the former owner of the Lima Locos as one of the people "braving" the Florida sun to watch the workouts, and we also enjoyed hearing people talk about some Toledo-area high schools. We watched people aggressively try to get autographs from some of the players, too. I love going to the workouts because it's a) free and b) a much more intimate baseball experience than going to the games. It's just a totally different experience than the spring training games or the regular season games.

This year, the Reds aren't training in Florida, so Tim is feeling a little lost. We'd hoped to take a trip to Phoenix to visit Meg and Mike and see a few games, but that ended up not working out. The Orioles have taken over the Reds' spot in Sarasota, and we've got several other teams training within about a hour of us: Pirates, Phillies, Blue Jays, Rays and Yankees. Not too much farther away are the Tigers. We're hoping to get to several games this year, although it might be a bit tricky with Tim's wacky work schedule and my two jobs. But we'll do our best!

Here are a few photos from our trip:

Lastings Milledge, who grew up in Bradenton.
Andrew McCutchen is on the right edge of this photo.

Andy LaRoche takes batting practice.

Manny Sanguillen. We saw him last year, too. Here, he was watching the catchers.

Pirates/Rays game, March 15

On Sunday, March 15, we continued our weekend of baseball with a trip south to Port Charlotte. Last year, the Rays trained in St. Petersburg - I could go there right before work and see almost a full game. Now, though, the team is about 90 minutes south of St. Petersburg. The hope was that the move would boost attendance/interest in the Rays. (I think the World Series appearance helped the cause, too.) But it worked - Rays spring training attendance was up 30% this year, while the rest of the Grapefruit League was down 20%.

But we had a day off and decided to make the trek out to the middle of nowhere. The field was nice enough, but I've heard enough stories from the Times' beat writer to know that "the Port" is a different place. Wild boars in the parking lot of the complex. Alligators in the lake outside of the field. A limited choice of restaurants - Perkins, Bob Evans, Buffalo Wild Wings, Olive Garden and Applebee's. A Days Inn. Not exactly an exciting place in the city.

But people don't go there for bright lights or lack of wildlife - they go for the baseball. On the day we went, there were 11 innings of baseball. And the game ended in a tie. The game looked over in the ninth, with the Pirates down four runs. But in a rare offensive explosion, they tied it up.

The exterior of the ballpark.

Carl Crawford.

Joe Maddon makes a pitching change.

Pirates in the infield.

More spring training!

Tim and I went to Pirate City last week to see the Pirates workout. It was a beautiful morning and there weren't too many people out and about, so it was a nice day to walk around and check out some of the players.


One of the coolest things for me was to see Pirate greats Manny Sanguillen (above) and Chuck Tanner (below). Tanner was actually sitting on the same bench as us at one point. He was there as a scout, but he was approached to sign a baseball for one woman, and then he paused to talk with two men about a recent speech he gave.


We saw Ryan Doumit, Andrew McCutchen and Nate McClouth as well as Andy and Adam LaRoche. We also watched Eric Hinske and Jack Wilson (below). It's cool to be so close to the players - we heard Hinske comment on McClouth's extremely blond hair. We heard Wilson tell a fan that he makes Snapfish calendars for his wife every year.

We also watched Erik Kratz, a former player for a guy Tim knows - the guy was a coach at Eastern Mennonite University, where Kratz went to college. And we followed Brian Bixler, a Pirate from Sandusky, where Tim covered his high school basketball and baseball days.

Tomorrow, we're going to our first spring training game! Be sure to expect pictures from that :-) (And all the games we're going to for the rest of the month - we're planning on at least one a weekend!)