Major League Baseball

I sign up to get this weekly newsletter (email) of things to do with kids in the Pinecrest area. A while ago you could enter to win Miami Marlin tickets, so I did and about a week later we had four tickets arrive in the mail! We were so excited!

Sterling really needed to get some study time in, and parking at the stadium is $20, so I decided to pay 4 bucks for parking and 4 bucks for a metro pass and cut costs to $8. Our babysitter arrived, with her mom (who loves our kids, haha) and I went over everything with her. Guys--I NEVER understood the anxiety of leaving your kids with a babysitter until moving here. It's just SO different than a niece or a nephew or even the best friend you've had since high school. You just KNOW those people, but on top of that, you KNOW that they have a huge network of people surrounding them to help should anything go wrong. I don't know what it was on Friday, whether it was a babysitter we'd never had before (I just recently started teaching her piano, she is in our stake) or because it was the longest we'd ever left Molly, or the fact that she had to put Molly to bed (I've always left late enough that Molly was already asleep) or just the fact that I have three kids ages three and under and that is a lot for one teenager!! But--she is super awesome and my kids ADORE her, so after going through my page and a half long list of 'if's and maybe's' I headed out the door, parked the car, and got on the metro.

Molly had been crying when I left, so I wanted to see if she had been able to calm her down ok. I went to text her and realized I had gone over ALL of our phone numbers and contact info, and hadn't gotten her phone number (I usually text her mom). No big deal, I just texted her mom to ask for the number. Only when her mom answered back, she said that our sitter had left her phone at home charging. I would blame myself for not going over this beforehand (I do, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.) but I had seen her with a phone in her hand at my house while I was talking to her, it had just been her moms. Anyway. So then, already jittery, I got SUPER nervous about some disaster striking (Molly choking, Will eating something poisonous like a cleaner or something, Molly falling down the stairs, etc., etc.) and turned to the wonderful "village" for help. My neighbor Daniella was AMAZING and had a phone walked over to my babysitter in an instant. Phew for that mom anxiety! And within another hour our sitter's mom had dropped off her phone to her. 

In the meantime, she was amazing. Got all three kids asleep without ANY crying (I can't even do that sometimes), did ALL the dishes,  swept, cleaned up all the living room toys, and when Molly woke up, as per her usual, at 10:30pm, it didn't even phase her and she just rocked her and had her asleep again before we were home! (I KNEW Molly didn't need her night feedings any more, sneaky little girl, now if I could just find a way to get over them without waking up our kids with her screamings every night, haha.) Definitely a huge WIN in the babysitting department, and I felt a little better, upon reflection, that we do have a network of supportive people here, even if it is not quite the same as my own family. Thank you, thank you everyone.

So---besides that small drama (which really was small, it only took my metro ride into the city to get things squared away) we had a FANTASTIC night.

Really, the kind of date nights that make you feel all mushy and lovey and SO happy that you are married. Apparently we need to go to more baseball games, haha! We loved watching the baseball and I had so much fun telling Sterling all my memories from 8 years of softball and we had a great time watching all the fans on the big screen--their dancing was awesome. Also, we were right by a bar, so we had some fun little shows of plain hilarity right beside us, haha.

Selfie on the metro by myself. Big first! Also, awkward. Not sure I have ever taken a selfie without a child before! 

We bought hot dogs outside the stadium before going in, from a nice little latino corner stand. MUCH cheaper.

Sterling was so excited for the sauerkraut.l

We invited some of our best friends and it was AWESOME!  We knew he liked baseball, but I had no idea how much--we got all the players stats, wages, pasts, etc. It was so much fun! It added so much to the game and the night! Our very own Giancarlo Stanton made TWO home runs (his thing) just for us! 

Stanton running to home base.

This lit up and played music when a home run was hit.

The city, coming out of the stadium. There is something about a city at night!

Then we got a -somewhat sketchy- ride home together on the metro and watched the stadium end-of-game fireworks while we went! So fun. Oh, we also sold our arms for kettle corn (Sterling's favorite) but it was a massive bag, and it was delicious, so totally worth it. Yay for free tickets and a wonderful night!