Our Family: A Baseball Summer

This summer has been so fun for us as a family. We are truly grateful to have spent it with all of our family and friends.

Early on in June, Brandon and Laura brought their family over to stay with us for a few days. It was so fun to have them over. While they were here, Brandon managed to get four free tickets on the first base line to the Boise Hawks opening game. The food was even free with an unlimited account to order. We must have had around $100 total in Gatorade and food!

We all got free Hawks baseball caps as a perk.

Brandon was friendly with everybody that paid attention to him, including Reggy.

Yeah, I could see those two hanging out. Brandon even spent the whole night "coaching," if you will, the players as the went up to the plate including Wayne Gretzky's son #9, Trevor.

At the end of the night, it was announced that we could trade out tickets in for tickets to another game of an equal or lesser value. Since we had the best seats in the house, we figured that we could get a couple more for DATE NIGHT!!! And since Brandon and Laura were not planning on being back for the rest of the summer, they gave us their tickets to trade in. TWO DATE NIGHTS!?!? FOR FREE!?!?

Thanks Brandon and Laura!!!

Unfortunately, the club wouldn't give us the seats we had because they were owned by the company Brandon works for so we had to settle for seats of a lesser value. But fortunately, those four first base line seats equalled 12 third base line box tickets! Do the math and you'll find out that we had two family dates for free!!! So off we went.

The first game was fun. But last night was awesome.

Maia and Katie Belle with Jeffery the Hawks' Mascot.

(Sadie will probably blog her picture later).

After several foul balls out the third base line and watching a little boy chase after them, the kids decided to get in on the action. Coralie and I had about three innings where we were kid free... alone... able to hear the crickets... as they waited and hoped.

Eventually, it happened. With a couple of cracks off the bat, our squad fended off and recovered not one,

but two foul balls!!!

Maia and Sadie ended up snatching them while Katie Belle just bounced everywhere with sheer exhilaration, Luke flexing the muscle at any poor squirm even thinking about weaseling in unnoticed to plunder the plunder.

We really had fun. Here, the Hawks are pitching,

the girls being girls

and Coralie ever so pretty.

Down the 7th inning stretch, the kids got to run onto the field and sing take me out to the ball game with the crowd. If you look closely, you can see two little red shirts in the middle and a long brown pony tail in front of them. They are (in order from right to left), Sadie, Luke (wearing a hat) and Katie Belle. Toward the front, the tiny little shrimp standing in the turquoise is Maia. (I think she is even looking at me.)

The game itself, was agonizing to sit through. We had been behind since the top of the first inning. By the bottom of the 8th, we were down 4-0 and it wasn't looking good. However, the Hawks got their Mojo going and rallied to tie the game. It was spectacular! The game still tied, it was a classic bottom of the 9th, based loaded, no outs, moment. In one quick swing, the batter popped it out to right field. The ball was caught for an out and our runner tagged on third and sprinted home for the game winning run.