27 Weeks

Another week has gone by and it was an eventful one. I found out Monday that I didn't pass the 1-hour glucose screening so I had to go back in for the 3-hour test. Good news - I passed it! But it wasn't fun and I'm just glad it's all over with and I made it through without getting sick. (If I threw up, I would have had to start all over.) We went to our first baby class on Babycare Basics. It was pretty much a refresher, but we did learn a few new things, which is always good. We have the "big" class Saturday - Prepared Childbirth. It's from 9-3 and hope it goes well. We were also excited to get a glimpse of Baby B in 4D this week. The experience was neat, however, she wanted nothing to do with it. Her feet were in front of her face the entire time, and if they ever moved, then she would put her arm in front of her eyes. I think she wants us to wait to see her in October. :)

How far along? 27 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: +22 lbs. (yea for gaining only 1 pound between dr. visits)
Stretch marks? Ummm...yup. Found a few little ones last night. :( Bummer.
Sleep: Pretty good
Best moment this week: Seeing Baby B in 4D
Movement: Every day!
Food cravings: fruit
Gender: Girl (confirmed!)
Labor Signs: None
Belly Button in or out? still in
What I miss: having an unlimited wardrobe
What I am looking forward to: prenatal massage
Weekly Wisdom: empty stomach + bottle of sugary drink + 4 draws of blood over 3
hours = yuck
Milestones: passed the glucose test - woohoo for no gestational diabetes! Also
completed our first baby class - Babycare Basics.

26 Weeks

For those of you who were notified that Cynford's Blog has been updated, let me warn you - this is Cindy, not Brad. As you read in the last post from our vacation, Brad has retired but might make a comeback to blog our travels in 18 years. (Maybe I can get him to offer up a "celebrity post" about our baby...doubtful.)

It's been a couple of weeks since I've provided an update about Baby B. All is going well, we (her and I) are both growing each and every day. The heat is getting worse, so I'm trying to stay inside as much as I can. We took a 2 week vacation, as most of you already know, which some people like to call a "babymoon." We had a blast touring ballparks around the country and I didn't have to drive 1 mile of it! Thanks Bradford! :)

I continue to shop for baby girl clothes - I can see how it can easily become an addiction. Baby showers will be coming up next month and I'm so thankful to have such wonderful friends and family to host the parties. I can't wait to see everyone!

So that's it for now. Here are some of the milestones of the last couple of weeks:

How far along? 26 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: +22 lbs. (I'm hoping to not go up much more than this---yeah right)
Maternity clothes? Yes
Stretch marks? No
Sleep: Start out on my side like I'm supposed to, but end up on my back - no major consequences as of yet
Best moment this week: Scheduled a 4D ultrasound
Movement: Mostly in the morning and evening
Food cravings: I had my share of ballpark food over the last 2 weeks, which addressed my craving for nacho cheese
Gender: Girl
Labor Signs: None
Belly Button in or out? kind of non-existent
What I miss: getting in and out of a car easily
What I am looking forward to: 4D ultrasound
Weekly Wisdom: swimming is heaven
Milestones: currently entering 3rd trimester!

Baseball Roadtrip - Day 8

Day 8 is our final game....Indians vs. Tigers

We started the day by waking up to find out our a/c unit leaked all night and caused the carpet near the unit to be wet....guess where I left the mini netbook charging last night? Luckily everything still works fine. On the way out of the hotel we told the front desk the issue and they said they'd fix it. (more on that later)

So what would a day on this trip be without getting lost? Somehow I missed my turn to get on Middlebelt and we had to break out Maggie to help save the day. This is definitely a situation where MPB would have been useful. We managed to find Villa Bakery and Mike had his first ever Pizza bread, which he liked (we are going back tomorrow morning before leaving town.) We left there and headed to Kohls to get some Tigers/Michigan gear. It was at this point that Mike told me to turn off the Matchbox 20 cd he had bought the day before because it was annoying him. It seems Matchbox 20 had the same effect on him it does everyone else.

We then headed to Wal-Mart after and this is where Mike had a gay or not gay moment. As we were standing in the checkout line, I caught him singing 3am (by Matchbox 20) while going into a full pitching windup and delivery. So I ask you gay or not gay?

After that we headed to Ann Arbor where we went to buy some U of M gear for Brooklyn (and me.) We found some good things for both of us. On the way back to the car, Mike made us stop at an ice cream shop so he could get a caramel apple he had seen in the window as we initially walked by. Turned out to be the best moment of the trip....because this shop sells SUPERMAN ice cream, my absolute favorite ice cream. It is one of those things I only find in Michigan, and the place I used to get it at closed a few years ago, so I had no clue where to get it. It was awesome.

After we left there, we had our 5 second Cindy is in a bad mood moment of the day. We were on I-94 heading from Ann Arbor to Detroit (but on the way we would be passing by the hotel.) Mike says, "Cindy do you have the tickets to the game with you?" In true Marco fashion she says "no." Mike starts to get concerned and a few minutes later Cindy says "they are at will call." So she knew all along where they were, but decided to shatter the self-esteem of the extremely fragile Metro Mike.

We arranged to meet up with my cousin Theresa and her husband James at 5pm at the Hockeytown Cafe. We got to downtown Detroit at 3:30 and decided to park in the Ford Field garage (the sign said $4 and it is next door to Comerica Park.) So we took our parking ticket, parked, walked in Ford Field to check it out, and then headed down to the first floor of the parking garage. (the sign now said $10 for parking, but as we suspected you pay the $10 as you enter; so when we left later that night after the game we had no reason to pay the $4 or $10 since the gates were open in the garage.....so basically we got free parking!) As we were headed to the Hockeytown Cafe, Mike spotted the Greektown Casino and he begged us to let him go. He told us how much money he would win at craps, he even said he would buy us jerseys with the profits. In case you haven't heard yet Mike lost $50 in 15 minutes. And the only time he won money was when he betted against himself, on accident. We left there and headed to Hockeytown Cafe. As we were walking the strap on my crocs broke; and we found out that Cindy giggles like a little kid when she hears the term "croc strap." We met my cousin at the restaurant and had a good pre-game dinner and met their 6 month old Alex. We finished dinner and walked across the street to the game.

Comerica Park is my home away from home, so the stadium was awesome. The game was a pitching duel and lasted about 2 hours 45 minutes, not bad for an American League game. I was impressed with the Mexecutioner's Edwin Jackson's pitching performance, although I was sad to see the Backyard Militia's Cliff Lee also get a quality start. Our seats were in the small wedge in centerfield, but we were in the middle of the row, Mike felt right at home because he was in the middle of a "man sandwich," but after a few innings I decided we needed to walk the stadium and watch the rest of the game from standing room only sections. As for food, Mike and I each had a pretzel and Cindy an elephant ear. We bought some pink Tigers outfits for Brooklyn, but failed in our attempt to find an Edwin Jackson away jersey for me (in fact for some reason they dont sell EJ jerseys at the stadium.) The Tigers won 5-1, so all is good.

When we got back to the hotel tonight, the room was warm because the a/c was turned off when they "repaired" it. The room smelled like mildew and so Cindy called to complain; as she was complaining the a/c unit started sparking and it smelled like a fireworks show had just happened. They finally agreed to switch us rooms but instead of a room with 2 double beds, they gave us a king with a foldout. So Mike is on the foldout (we convinced him the springs would be therapeutic for his back.)

So that is all for this trip, look for my next blog when we resume traveling in 18 years from this October.

Baseball Roadtrip - Day 7

So today's game was the Indians vs the White Sox.

Last night we got back to the hotel really late from Milwaukee; and we didn't get to bed until 3am; however, everyone was up by 8am. Mike finished up his work and we left the hotel by 9:30. Stop #1 was Garrett Popcorn, which was in downtown Chicago. I got lost again in downtown Chicago, this time was an all-time low. I was actually sitting at stop light and Cindy told me to turn left, yet I still went straight. I blame the long traffic light.

After Garrett's we were headed to the WF Chocolate outlet which was near US Cellular Field. Before getting out of downtown, I managed to almost run over a Chinaman. We were both stopped at a traffic light and the light turned green and he started pedaling but instead of straight his bike started going right. In fairness there is some controversy as to whether he was in fact a Chinaman, I say he was, Cindy says he was just an aged white man, and Michael says he has no idea because it happened before 10am. What Michael is sure of is that I hit a curb trying to avoid the Chinaman and it threw Michael across the back seat of the car.

So we get to the WF Chocolate outlet. First consider how smart we are....we are going to a CHOCOLATE store to buy CHOCOLATE before heading straight to a day baseball game....meaning the CHOCOLATE is going to be left in the car during the game. Those thoughts crossed our mind after I basically bought out the entire store. As we were finalizing our acquisition of the entire outlet store, Mike decided he wanted breakfast, so he managed to find the only real Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Chicago. Of course he goes in there looking all Mexican and so they spoke to him in Spanish, and he had to break it to them that he and his sister never learned Spanish because they didnt need it where they live. So 3 chorizo y huevo tacos later; Mike was ready to go, and Cindy was hungry. So she orders a potato and egg taco and the people stare at her; finally after Michael couldnt stand the silence any longer, he jumped in to help bridge the language barrier. The lady called him out on it saying I thought you didnt speak Spanish. Then the lady asked Cindy if she wanted a drink, she said no (hey look Cindy does speak Spanish, she said "no.") The lady then did what Diana would have done, she said you need a water, for the baby, here it is free. As we left the restaurant I had a genius idea, let's go across the street to Target and get a cooler for the chocolate. We also needed a place to park the car and upload Mike's work files because the air card was not working so well while traveling 70 mph. So we head to Target, I go in to get the cooler, Mike and Cindy upload his files. I return with the cooler, but Target has no ice. Cindy tells me we are 2 minutes from being done uploading file 2 of 4 and we have 10 minutes left to be totally finished. Mike offers to walk over to a nearby Market to buy ice while the uploads finish. In a truly Jack & the Beanstalk moment, Mike leaves to buy us ice and returns with Mexican chicle and Pistachios....I guess he thought those would keep the CHOCOLATE from melting. While he was gone the upload worked slow, so Cindy's 10 minutes turned in to 20 minutes, and as I let her know her calculation was way off she yelled at me. I wanted to say "Why are you yelling you are a foot from me?" But instead I documented it like Ray from Rain Man would have done. My iPhone notes say Cindy yelled at me at 11:47am.

Ok enough about that, let's get to the game. We parked in an apartment complex near the stadium and decided to walk to the right to get to the stadium which was right there (later we discovered the entrance was 50 yards to our left). Cindy had to go to the bathroom very bad and here we are walking around the stadium. And we walked and walked and walked. We had to circle the stadium before we found the entrance. The first thing I did when I got there was grab a Comiskey Dog (see pic below).

Mike and I each got some elote; Mike then proceeded to eat a pretzel, a hot dog, and some dippin dots. Apparently he wants to leave some souveniers in Detroit as well.

The game was fairly boring, mainly because both teams SUCK. I think the Sox walked 8 batters in the first 3 innings, so the thing was dragging on. To make matters worse we are sitting there baking in the sun in the left field bleachers. So we look up and see the upperdeck section behind the right field foul pole is totally shaded and empty; so we made the executive decision to move up there. From down below it was a wonderful idea; however, once getting up there I realized how high that really was. I'm not gonna lie, I was scared, I pretty much sat there leaning backwards in row 2 holding on to the chair next to me. Meanwhile I look to my left and this little 4 year old comes walking up the aisle at the bottom of the section and climbs up on the concrete holding on to the railing looking out over the field. He was literally one foot from plunging 150' to his death and he was not scared at all. His dad realized what he was doing and snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the shirt, but I was freaking out even more. The rest of the game I kept yelling at Cindy to sit down and be careful any time she was within 3' of the railing. I couldnt wait for this game to be over. It ended 10-8 and if I had to rate US Cellular Field it would rank last of the 8 stadiums we are seeing on this trip. It is a boring place, with rude fans.

We left the game and drove the 4 hours to Ann Arbor, Michigan. On the way we stopped in Paw Paw, MI (or as Mike and I said repetitively POW POW) at Wendy's and I decided to join the "Bobby Studer Dipping Chicken Nuggets in Frosties is OK Fan Club." See pick below. As I stated yesterday, there is nothing wrong with it.

We arrived in Ann Arbor at 9pm and stopped at Meijer. I bought so much Tigers stuff that was 75% off, Cindy of course found clothes for Brooklyn that were neither Michigan related nor on sale. Why do I have a feeling a daughter is going to cost me lot more than a son? We arrived to our hotel here in Detroit and are getting ready for our final game of the trip tomorrow.

Random Thoughts

- Does Bobby's family own Studer's Bar on Division in Arlington?

- Is Ya Wall the greatest Ticket drop ever?

- The Zac Brown Band is the cheesiest country/reggae/bluegrass/rock act since Garth Brooks

-Michael stocked up on candy from his childhood (Wax Bottles, Fruit Stripe Gum, Strawberry Mentos, Bazooka, and Orange Tic Tacs)

-Arnold Palmer Arizona Tea/Lemonade is awesome

-Punk'd may be the worst show ever on tv

-Michael is trying to convince me Matchbox 20 is not gay

-And in case you are wondering, we did not get a bag of ice for the CHOCOLATE and Michael and Cindy tried convincing me the CHOCOLATE wouldnt melt because it wasnt that hot out.....as you might imagine, they were wrong!!!!!!!!!!

I am really tired because I have driven every second of this trip so far; so I am wrapping this up and going to bed!

Baseball Roadtrip - Day 6

Today's game was the Milwaukee Brewers vs St Louis Cardinals. But the day began way before that....

The plan was to leave the hotel this morning at around 9am to shop on Michigan Ave and then go and eat some Chicago style pizza. So as you might expect, Michael and Cindy worked until 11am on his work, then we went to Buca de Beppo, because it doesnt get more authentic Chicago than that. We ordered spaghetti with marinara and pizza for lunch. The waitress repeated our order and said spaghetti with Meatballs and we said no just marinara. So of course the spaghetti came out with 2 giant meatballs (Cindy got sad because it reminded her of Callie's.) I told Cindy and Michael that we needed to let the waitress know we didnt order those because it would likely cost more. So the waitress comes over and I'm about to tell her we didnt order them, and she says to us, "You all dont want these meatballs?" Michael said no we're good. So apparently the waitress took that to mean leave them on our table. Michael never touched the meatballs and so we spent and extra $7 for no reason! After listening to the waitress' stories about breat feeding triplets, etc you'd understand why we just wanted out of there rather than try and explain the mistake she made.

We then spent 15 minutes using 3 different iPhones trying to find a Garrett Popcorn on Michigan Ave (only to learn they all closed...not all Garrett's, just the Michigan Ave ones.) Then it was time to leave for the new hotel & car rental place. So here we are in downtown Chicago with all of our luggage, and it starts to rain....great! We made it to the train stop for our new hotel where we noticed it was still raining, so we all agreed that even though it was only 2 blocks, we would taxi it to the hotel. So all the taxis are sitting there in a line at the train station, but each one refuses to take us since the fare would be so low. As a result, we said screw it and just walked the 2 blocks in the rain. As soon as we got to the room we headed downstairs and caught the shuttle to the car rental place.

At the car rental place, the lady helping us was what I'd refer to as a real "Personality Plus" person, meaning she was the worst customer service person ever (see Swingers for the Personality plus reference.) I mentioned to her the whole give me a car with Michigan plates so I can avoid drop off fee. She said no matter what plates are on the car I'm paying the fee. She then assigned us a car. When we went outside we noticed the car she gave us just so happened to have Michigan plates (so I (which means Cindy will) will be calling Dollar Customer Service tomorrow to see if we cant arrange a deal to avoid the $300 dropoff fee.

So we headed to Milwaukee, which was a drive filled with construction. It went fairly smoothly until we got into Milwaukee, which is when I realized that our Magellan GPS aka Maggie was as useless as Marco when it comes to navigating me through Milwaukee to Miller Park (Transalation: we got lost again, but I swear I followed the gps directions.) After about 10 minutes of getting on this highway and then u-turning back the other way; we finally arrived. The atmosphere was awesome in the parking lot. As we were waiting to pay to park we could see tons of cars already parked and people tailgating. I got things started off by threatening to embarass Cindy by saying to the lady collecting the parking fee at the game, "Hey you live up here so you must know a lot about cheese. What type of cheese do you think Mike's feet smell like?"

As for the game: this stadium is awesome, definitely top 3 of the trip. The food is incredible we sampled everything from bratwursts, baked potatoes, nachos made from waffle fries and nacho cheese, baseball cookie, pretzels, and candied pecans. The game was extremely close, we barely missed catching a homerun ball. Prince Fielder, a Mexecutioner great, won the game by legging out a bases loaded infield single in the bottom of the 8th inning (he is big boy.)

The drive home was great until 2.5 miles from the hotel the highway was closed so they could hang a new sign over the highway. We were delayed 20 minutes or so.

Misc Details

- Miller and Coors have merged apparently and so Coors Light was for sale at Miller Park....too bad Mike wouldn't take me up on my offer. (On the Subway today he had his iPod up so loud he didnt hear me offer him $100 and then $200 to simply acknowledge I was speaking to him!)

-Playboy radio, even if free with your rental car, is very uncomfortable for everyone when traveling in the car with your wife and brother-in-law.

-Due to Cindy's current condition, I chose to use the "wide load" lane at all Toll Booths on the trip between Chicago and Milwaukee

-Mike's line of the trip was issued after he failed to buy a souvenier at this game as well. After waiting in line he decided not to get a custom shirt made for $25. He said, "When someone asks me where my souveniers from the trip are, I'll tell them I left my souveniers from this trip at the Marriott's toilet." And then he proceeded to inhale a bratwurst.

-Mike managed to get full from eating 3 separate times at tonight's game

-If you are ever bored and looking for some entertainment, ask Cindy to do her awesome imitations. (warning: it may be hard to tell the difference between her Boston, NY, and Chicago....they all sounded Texan to me)

-A question we pondered on the drive home, Which family had the bigger weekly food bill, The Fielders (with Prince and Cecil) or the Mycoskie's?

-For anyone who doesn't already know this, if you are around Mike and he is eating ballpark food, get him a separate room for himself and his souveniers.

-Bobby, it's ok. Keep dipping your nuggets in your Frosty.

Sorry this is so long...Cindy is yelling at me for writing too much, so adios until tomorrow.

Baseball Roadtrip - Day 5

So Day 5 began with a trip to the Phoenix airport. As we waited for our plane, the person I was traveling with began complaining about how much she wanted to go home and how tired she was and how she thought part 2 of the trip was a bad idea. We got on the plane, I fell asleep immediately and apparently my companion started getting real anxious to the point of almost being sick. Luckily she fell asleep and when she woke up, we were about an hour from landing and she had a change of heart about the trip, she was excited again.

When we landed in Chicago we got a text from Mike saying he had just landed. As we walked to his gate, we passed a restaurant and it smelled like old cheese. Cindy said, "Mike must be here because I can smell his feet."

So we got Mike and headed to the Trains. After a 30 minute ride we were in downtown Chicago at one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed in, The Marriot on The Magnificent Mile. We pretty much dropped our bags off and headed back to the trains to go to Wrigleyville.

We got to the game early, Cindy & I bought Cubs shirts to wear at the game, Michael opted to not purchase anything Cubs related since they were playing the Braves.

As the gates opened we went in and found our seats. It was so awesome to see the field and the stadium, basically empty. After a few minutes we went down to get some food. I grabbed a beer and we were walking around looking at the different food options. As I walked behind home plate, a guy approached me and said, "Hey do you want to be the Old Style beer drinker of the game." I asked what I had to do, he said just meet me at Aisle 16 at 6pm. So as we waited until 6pm, Michael inhaled his first Chicago dog.

At 6pm I was seated down near the field and given an Old Style Beer batting practice jersey with the Cubs logo...the problem is that it was a large, which is a size I havent seen since the Cubs last won a World Series. So I called Cindy and told her and Michael, I was going to be going on the field to have my picture taken (with my name on the centerfield scoreboard); I also told her Michael lucked out because I had a shirt for him.

After I had my picture taken I returned to our seats and the game began. The atmosphere was the best of any game I have ever been to (except Game 1 of the '06 World Series.) Every fan was into the game, there is no videoboard to distract you from the game, no cheerleaders shooting shirts into the stands, everyone waits until between innings to go get food or use the bathroom. And there is no better moment than the 7th inning stretch when everyone stands and sways back and forth singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. The game itself also did not disappoint. It was a 2-1 Braves win, but in the bottom of the ninth the Cubs had 2 outs a runner on 1st and the winning run at bat.

Other random info:

-I offered Mike all the Coors Light he can drink tonight at MILLER Park if he runs full speed into the window in our hotel room on the 36th floor. We were debating whether it was double-paned or not. (and for those of you that are slow this morning, Miller Park only sells Miller Lite and MGD)

-The Mexecutioners have somehow acquired Matt Garza for the small price of Chone Figgins.

-Michael ate 2 Chicago dogs, I had one (mine was with everything on it)

-Cindy forgot to bring her camera to the game, the one time I am on Wrigley Field. (Lucky for her the Cubs are mailing me a picture they took of me in about 2 weeks.)

-Before the game we all entered a bean bag toss for a chance to win a HP printer and enter a drawing to throw out the first pitch at a future Cubs game. Mike made one bean bag, Cindy made 0 (although she almost hit a kid), and I made 2. So no printers were won, but Mike and I are in the drawing for the First Pitch and Cindy got a lollypop.

-So we needed internet for Mike to do his work at the hotel. Cindy was given a coupon at check-in for either a day of free internet or a drink at Starbucks. Keep in mind internet is $15/day, coffee is $5 and Cindy is pregnant and not drinking any caffeine. It still took me 15 minutes to convince Cindy to use the coupon on the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So today we are going to shop in Chicago and then head to Milwaukee...

Baseball Roadtrip - Day 4

So today was Day 4, Chase Field in Phoenix for the Diamondbacks/Padres. Since we were already in Phoenix, we went and had lunch with my grandma and Aunt Grace. It was 109 degrees all day, which is ridiculous. I don't want to hear about dry heat, because it was hot and miserable.


As we left my grandma's house, I got lost again. The best part is I got lost despite Cindy telling me twice within a minute to continue straight on the road I was about to turn on....I still decided to turn again! As we got to the stadium, Cindy asked her best question of the trip.....WHY ARE WE THE ONLY TEAM WITH A STADIUM NOT IN DOWNTOWN? (stay tuned for her worst question of the trip.)

From the outside the stadium it is really nice, especially when you see that the roof is closed!



Inside it kind of felt like Minute Maid Park a little bit, but it was a weird shape, and the upper level was like 100 rows and extremely steep (luckily we were in the left field bleachers about 5 rows off the field.) The food was great though, they had a lot of $1.50 options like hot dogs and corn dogs, etc; and their nachos were the old school round tortilla chips which the Rangers have some how distanced from. They were so much better than anything the Ballpark in Arlington has to offer.

The game was pretty boring, until the 6th inning when they did the kiss cam. The first couple they put on the screen was a hispanic couple, my guess was she was in her 20s and he was in his 30s. They refused to kiss and she was laughing and covering her face; after a few seconds the camera went to another couple, and everyone booed the hispanic couple. After showing several other couples they went back to the hispanic couple and once again she covers her face laughing...then in a truly priceless moment, she mouths "He's my dad." The entire stadium erupted in laughter.

Now on to Cindy's worst question of the trip. After standing and singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame for the 7th Inning Stretch; we sit down and Cindy asks if we are in the Top of the 7th inning.


After the game we decided to return our rental car, which we did and successfully avoided the $180 drop off fee. We then took the car rental shuttle to the hotel shuttle place at the airport, then caught the Radisson shuttle. On the way back to the hotel, I convinced the driver to take us to Del Taco for a late night snack. I offered to get him something, he declined, but at least we were able to eat Del Taco one more time before getting out of town.

Baseball Roadtrip - Day 3

Today's trip was to San Diego with a connecting trip to Phoenix. Too bad all the drives can't be like LA to SD. The views were awesome and it was 90 minutes, somehow Cindy had to go to the bathroom more in that drive than any of the 7 hour trips!

The weather in SD was awesome, 70 degrees and sunny. The stadium was equally as awesome. (It is definitely top 3 of the stadiums we have seen so far). Petco Park has tile work on the exterior of the building making it look real upscale.

The best thing about the stadium was the 5 for $5 deal they had. Someone please forward the following to Tom Hicks: for $5 you get a full size hot dog, a 22 ounce drink, a cookie, a bag of popcorn, and a bag of peanuts! A hot dog by itself is $4.50. The other crazy thing about this stadium is that it had buildings on the stadium grounds, an old warehouse, a hotel, and a condo building. So those people can watch the games for free on their balconies. Also out in center field behind the seats there is a grass area with a large tv and a sign that says come here to watch all SD road games.

As for the game, despite it being 70 degrees, we were sitting in the direct sunlight; so Cindy had to keep getting up and cooling off in the concession area. And I was embarassed at myself for wearing a Rangers Kinsler jersey with a Tigers hat. How could I let something like that happen? To protect C from the sun and me from any further embarassment, once we got to the bottom of the eighth, Dodgers up 6-1 and the Mexecutioners 13-2-1 week already wrapped up; I made the call to leave the game. Turns out the game got a lot more interesting when we left....going 13 innings! Dodgers still won, so we didn't really miss much.

After the game, at around 3:45 we headed for Phoenix. We headed straight into the mountains...great. I have decided I like the mountains better from afar. Driving through them you have no railings, no radio, your ears pop, and everyone is flying by you. To top it off, some idiot decided that a 300 ft bridge was a good idea up there 4000 ft in the air! Anyways we drove 2 hours before making our first stop in El Centro, CA....it was 112 degrees!! We arrived in Phoenix around 9:30; and now we have all day Monday to relax before Monday night's Padres/Dbacks game.

Scatter-shooting while driving to Phoenix:

• It is fun to drive while imitating fake Greggo, saying things like "Oh boy" and "Man I'm getting bored with this"
• Singing the entire song 99 bottles of beer on the wall is more exhausting than you might think. (for the record I only messed up once, Cindy twice)
• Why are there 100 mexican radio stations but no country ones between SD and Yuma?
• It took us 5 seconds to get through the Border Patrol check. They took one look at Cindy and said, nope no Mexicans in this car.
• Why do we celebrate a "birthday" every year but a wedding day only once?
• Del Taco restaurant is pretty dang good but they need to take credit cards
• Snickers ice cream bars are underrated

Well that's all folks until tomorrow.....

Baseball Roadtrip - Day 2

We started Day 2 of our baseball roadtrip in San Francisco, leaving early for Anaheim. It was another long day of driving, and not quite as scenic as the day before. We did have a short period of driving through mountains (up to 4400 ft.) where Brad's hands were sweaty and he was scared. But soon enough we caught a beautiful view and it made it all a little better. Here's a glimpse of what we saw:

The drive was fairly uneventful, except for the moment when I was blogging about Day 1 and Brad mentions he's going North instead of South. We remedied that fairly quickly and got back on route to Anaheim.

We arrived in Anaheim around 3 and settled into the hotel, just a mile or so from Angel Stadium. We drove over to the ballpark and were greeted with $5 parking, which is always a nice surprise! Here's a pic of our entrance into the stadium:

The weather during the game was unbelievable! The sun was out for a while but it was nice and cool. Brad caught a batting practice home run ball, so that was pretty exciting! We also got to experience a fly over before the game, while Michael Johns from American Idol sang the Star Spangled Banner. (Is it us, or is there something wrong with a non-American singing the national anthem, especially on Independence Day?) The fly over was cool - not like one I've seen before. Very slow and quite - but a pretty huge aircraft. Here's a pic.

It was a pretty long game, 3 hours and 15 minutes, but the weather and atmosphere really made it enjoyable. The night ended with a fantastic July 4th fireworks show in the ballpark...there's nothing like a watching a firework show in 70 degree weather!

AT&T Park and Angel Stadium are by far the top two ballparks of this trip so far!Just for fun, here are a few highlights of the day:

Question of the day (from Brad): Could a bear catch Callie?
Food of the day: Found a Baja Fresh on the trip to Anaheim (my favorite!)
What Cindy learned from Brad: when he says "Sounds good" it basically means "I don't care"

Hometeam Record: 2-0

Baseball Roadtrip - Day 1

Well the day started out great! We went to pickup our rental car at Dollar and were told that if we were able to locate a car with an Arizona license plate, we wouldn't have to pay the $180 drop-off fee when we leave the car in Phoenix. We rented a Compact car, which is typically like a Dodge Caliber or Chevy Cobalt - pretty small cars. So, not only did Brad find a Compact level car with an Arizona license plate, but it is a candy apple red 2008 Mustang. It was in the Compact section because it's out of state. Nice!

So we were on our way from Los Angeles to San Francisco at 7:00 AM. The trip took about 7 hours but went by fairly quickly (besides having to listen to Brad's earthquake and Scott Peterson line of humor). We drove up the coast and enjoyed our view the Pacific Ocean for a while. It's beautiful to see the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. Here's a pic of our initial drive into the mountains.

Once we arrived in San Francisco, and after a failed attempt to check in early to our hotel, we made our way downtown and drove around the city streets. Our first stop was Lombard St. The line of cars waiting to drive it was endless but we got a great glimpse of the landmark and still got to experience driving some steep streets.

Our next stop was Ghirardelli Square - yes, it's just what it sounds like. We parked and went up to the shopping area with the intent to have a warm brownie sundae. However, we got distracted by Kara's Cupcakes and went in to pick one out for each of us. I had Sweet Vanilla, Brad had S'mores. Yum. But....Sprinkles wins that battle. We made our way to the chocolate shop and shared a Ghirardelli warm brownie sundae. That's the point where we realized we probably didn't need a cupcake.

Finally, we headed over to AT&T Park for the Giants game. The weather was sunny but cool and felt great! We arrived a couple of hours early and walked around the park while watching batting practice for both teams. As the game started, the sun was still out but it started getting colder. By mid-game, the Giants were up by 13 and the temperature was down to 57 degrees. BRRRRR! I made my way over to a t-shirt stand and bought a long-sleeved shirt to keep me warmer. Brad also got us some hot chocolate - there is something not quite right about drinking hot chocolate at a baseball game in July. Needless to say, we stuck it out and enjoyed the game! The Giants won, obviously, and we headed out. Here's a pic BEFORE it got too cold!

To end the night, we got a little lost trying to leave downtown. But after just about 15 minutes of trying to navigate with my iPhone and figuring out which direction we were going (no compass in the 'Stang), we found our way to the hotel.

So far -- AT&T Park is the #1 rated ballpark of this trip! :)