Birthday and The Braves

Our #1 is now officially a teenager. It is truly hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital, scared to death as new parents! I remember looking at hubby our first night home with her and saying, "What on earth have we done?!" How time flies!!

She told her dad a while back that for her thirteenth birthday she would like to have suite tickets to the Atlanta Braves game and invite some of her new friends from Rome. That's not too much to ask, right? Surprisingly I wasn't thinking of the cost, but instead "Can we control that many thirteen year old, pubescent youngins in the Braves stadium for at least three hours?" We decided that we were certainly willing to try, and hubby was able to get sixteen suite tickets through his company--so we were all set.


By the time Game Day rolled around, birthday girl was so excited and could hardly wait til after school to leave for the game. After giving a quick lecture on safety and staying together, we left for the stadium. Hubby rode with a couple from our church, along with our younger kids, and I drove our truck with all the partiers. I mentally blocked out all noise and concentrated on just getting them there safely.

We arrived about an hour early, so we got all our food put away in the suite and had time to walk around a bit. I stayed at a distance so as not to claim them, but close enough to where I constantly knew their where abouts. They ended up at the Cartoon network ,Tooner Field, playing some games. They got a little out of control with the nerf baseballs, throwing them like dodge balls at point blank range when they were reprimanded by security. I still stayed at a distance! (kindof looking on like the other concerned parents as if to say, "why aren't these kids being supervised?"

For the most part, they watched the game and pigged out! When all was said and done, we had about 8 of 40 hotdogs left. We decided to play a game with them to see who could fit the most in

their mouth without chewing them up. Will J. and one of the teens competed. Most of course had too much pride to participate. Will J. took the prize with 4 hotdogs, while the other contestant fit 3 before the hotdogs started protruding and popping out involuntarily.(see purple shirt)

The Braves were victorious over the Reds 2 to 0. There was a great firework show that followed!

After the game, #1's Uncle Casey (Braves Stadium Announcer), came down and met the kids.

(Thanks Casey, you're such a swell guy!)

All in all, it was a great time with family, friends, baseball, hotdogs, junk food(lots of dippin dots!) and some really cool teenagers!

We arrived back home safely about 12:30 am. I dropped all the guys off at their homes and brought the girls back to our house for a sleepover. Hubby and I dozed off about 2 am to the sounds coming from the kitchen... chip bags, scooping of ice cream, the hum of the microwave warming up moon pies, etc. We just looked at eachother, eyes half opened, and hubby said, "that's disgusting." I had to giggle, and with that we konked out. What a day!!!