Take us Out to the Ball Game!

Or as Henry told his classmates today:

"I went to the baseball game and saw Angels!"

Well...sort of, I guess.

Everywhere we went, we were handed old baseball cards.

They might as well have been $100 bills as far

as Henry was concerned. He even wanted to include it

in his pictures. Yes, this is Henry, Charlie and Tom Nieto.

And there is Me, Henry, Charlie and Tom.

A true father and son moment....the walk up the

stairs to the ballpark:

Now see, one of the things I love about Nathan is

the giddy feeling he gets from the time he walks into

a ballpark to the time he sees the ball field.

It's as though the angels sing

the moment he lays his eyes on the field.

This is Henry's first view of the baseball field.

This isn't an overexposed photo, people. This is the light from the angels

halos as the choirs sang in perfect harmony as Nate introduced

his boys to the field. AHhhhhhhhh...

And then it was time to walk the park.

Not only because we wanted to show Henry the park,

but because we were there 1.5 hours before the first pitch.

Boy howdy did that come back to haunt us.

"And that is how you measure the distance between the pitchers mound and home plate"

And then we found the kid zone:

The boys spent the next 45 minutes in a continuous loop:

up the ladder, down the slide, up the ladder, down the slide,

nearly missing boys twice their size as they battle for

their turn down the slides.

I was nervous at first, but then found myself obsessed with

my cheese drowned chips covered in jalapenos

and then we were all having fun.

The Bartons:

This is where we sat, except we really didn't sit because

sitting next to Charlie was like wrestling a squirrel.

In fact, the nice, attractive young couple that sat next to me

and the squirrel likely won't have children for several decades

after watching me wrestle him.

I sat on Charlie so that I could use both hands to take this photo:

Having a moment:

This must have been before the game started, because Charlie is sitting still.

As soon as they announced "Play Ball!" Charlie was off to the races.

Backbends, screaming and even lodging both feet in the fold of the chair

which took me upwards of 10 minutes and the help of several people around me

to get him undone. And I didn't even charge the nice, young, attractive couple

next to me anything for the buttcrack show I gave them. You're welcome, young couple.

Henry's pre-hot dog snack:

Proud Papa and giddy little guy:

So, we finally gave up after the 4th inning.

This was about the time that Charlie started playing the "break away" game

where he runs away as he looks back at you only to crack headfirst into

immovable objects.

We said goodbye to the ballpark and finished watching the game in the

comforts of our hotel room.

Which in the end, was just fine with me.

Angels won in the 10th inning 4-3.