Baseball and Sunshine

Now that we're back from our Italy vacation, I'm going to finally post about our trip to Florida the end of March!

The last weekend of March we escaped what up until that point had been rainy weekends in St. Louis and headed south to warmth and sunshine! It had been 2 years since we'd visited our good friends and old neighbors Kevin & Deanna and their adorable kids.

Although we had good intentions of arriving at a reasonable hour, our flight out of St. Louis left 2 hours late.....so we were destined for a McDonald's fast food dinner run once we got to Orlando. That's really the only thing that went awry on our trip though...well, that and my bright red sunburn....so I guess I shouldn't complain....much.

The purpose of the trip was a dual one and the second purpose was.....baseball! We were able to catch 2 Cardinals spring training games under the gorgeous Florida sun. The Friday game we attended was at the Washington Nationals home field in Melbourne.


[Space Coast Stadium]

We sat out in the bleachers, but honestly those parks are so small there can't be a bad seat in the house.



As it was a Friday during Lent, I was drooling over everyone's hot dogs while eating meatless nachos. But I did enjoy a cold beer, so that's something....

We enjoyed taking in the game and I was having a ball snapping pictures as I sat watching. We were in the prime zone for foul balls coming from left-handed hitters, but nothing ever even got close. Bummer.











The Cardinals ended up losing, but Nate stuck around and snapped some pictures of the players signing autographs on their way out to the team bus. Unfortunately for us, we were not autograph ready the Friday game and that was our prime chance for getting autographs.


[Jason Motte]


[Adam Wainwright]

With Saturday came another sunny day and a road trip for Nate and I to catch the Cardinals at their home stadium in Jupiter.


[Roger Dean Stadium]

We went down pretty early to catch batting practice and warm ups and I roamed the grounds snapping pictures. One of the field maintanace guys even game me a used baseball. How cool.









I was really getting into my photos during this game with my 12x zoom lens. It feels like you're much closer to the players since the fields (well, at least the available seating) are much smaller than the major league parks.









We did get to see a win on Saturday, as well as play from most of the likely "starting lineup." My sunburn, which increased as the night wore on, pretty much matched the color of my dress. How lovely.



On Sunday, we spent the day at the beach where I shivered like a maniac and huddled under a towel for warmth [damn sunburn]. But it was cute seeing the kids play in the water and sand.



A constant, steady rain began falling Sunday evening, just in time for some perfect sleeping conditions....and our trip home the next day. Thanks for the wonderful time and wonderful dinners K&D!