Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I think every Dad looks forward to introducing his son to sports.  Honestly, I have really enjoyed those experiences too.  For our family, football and basketball games are regular events as we are season ticket holders to both at our local college.  But Josh's main passion is baseball...the Atlanta Braves specifically...and to say that he has been eager to bring Colton to his first real baseball game (we have a AAA team that Colton has seen, but that doesn't count) is probably an understatement!
Virginia Beach is not fortunate enough to host major league sports, but luckily Washington DC is, and even more fortunately, it is only a few hours from us.  The Braves play the Nationals a few times a season, so when the baseball schedule was released, Josh was quick to find a good game to take Colton to.  Josh meticulously planned out every aspect of our 24 hour trip...the date, the seats, the hotel, and even how we would best get to and from the game.
So this weekend was finally the day!  On Saturday morning, Josh, Colton, and I loaded up the car and made the quick trip up to DC (well, Alexandria actually since that is where Josh had decided we should stay).We decided to leave Levi at home (thanks Gigi), and while at first, I was not happy with that idea, I must admit it was nice to have a chance to give Colton some undivided attention again and make the weekend really special for him.  We got to the hotel with a few hours to spare, so we walked around Alexandria, hit up the new Anthropologie there (yep, that was for me!), got some lunch, and then spent some time getting ready in the hotel room.

And then it was time to hit the road for the game.  Colton was ready...

And he was nice enough to make sure Dee (his lovey) would rest comfortably while we were gone.

Josh had wanted to get Colton to the game with enough time to get some autographs, but unfortunately DC traffic did not agree.  We know it's usually bad, but this was exceptional, and even though we left our hotel almost 2 hours before the start of the game, the 8 mile drive took about an hour and a half!  I felt really bad because I know Josh had been looking forward to that part, but he handled it well! The good news, though, was that we made it to the game with about 30 minutes to spare (which won me a trip to Charlottesville in the fall after betting on the way there that it wouldn't happen!) and had some time to take in the stadium and get in our seats.

As for the actual game, Colton seemed to really enjoy the experience.  Honestly, the baseball seemed a bit slow-paced for him as he didn't get as into the game as he has football and basketball, but he clapped when he was supposed to clap and definitely enjoyed the food and drink (in fairness, that's my favorite part of a baseball game experience so I can understand!).

After the game, we headed back to Alexandria to get some dinner at our hotel's restaurant and then went back up to our room for the night.  When we woke up in the morning, we walked to get a bagel (Colton was a big fan of all the dogs and bikes in Alexandria...we heard "dog, bike, dog, bike" all weekend) and then hit the road.  In total, we were gone for about 27 hours...but it was 27 hours well spent!!!  I'm not sure Colton will remember his first baseball game experience or the special weekend he spent with mom and dad, but I know we will:)