Return to Blue Heaven on Earth

Ahhhhh, the sights, sounds and smells of baseball, America's pasttime and my favorite sport.

Dodger Stadium, I'm sorry I didn't make it out to visit you in 2009. Game times just didn't work well for us with Cora's nap and bed times, plus we had that little house fire and bathroom remodel to deal with.

We remedied that mistake this year, and got tickets for us and my family as a Father's Day gift for my dad and Stace.

It was, obviously, Violet's first trip to Blue Heaven on Earth, and Cora's first in her memory, though she had been a few times previously. You can see her very first trip here, when she was two months old and wearing the Dodger top that Violet wore Sunday.

Our day out went really smoothly, and great fun was had by all.

First off, the game was perfect for us. It was a pitchers' duel, meaning it went by fast. With two little ones, that is a good thing.

And, with it remaining scoreless until the bottom of the eighth, when the Boys in Blue went up 1-0, there was that needed tension that made the lone run that much more exciting.

It wasn't a terribly well-attended game, but that meant no hourlong line to leave the parking lot.

And, it was warm but not too hot, and our seats were in the shade. We love our new camera's awesome 20x zoom lens - that shot of Martin at bat is from our top deck seats!

Violet was excellent during the game, happy to look around. She only took one short nap, on Grandma's lap.

Actually, all day she only took very short naps. She stayed awake during church - that was a first - and only napped for about a half-hour on the way to the stadium, then the short nap during the game, and another very short nap in the evening.

Cora also did really well, working on writing letters with Grandma when she got bored of the baseball. She walked all the way to and from our car, except for the l-o-n-g staircases, and fell asleep in the car before we reached the freeway.