E.J.'s First Rays Game

The Sunday following Charlie's party, we decided to seize the opportunity to finally get E.J. to his very first Tampa Bay Rays game. It was also his first game in a Major League Baseball stadium! Considering his big sister saw her first Rays game at a mere four months old, and had visited five MLB stadiums by the time she was his age (14.5 months), I would say E.J. has some catching up to do. (For the record, in addition to Tropicana Field, Ellie has also seen games played in Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Cincinnati - plus four others in utero!).

It was a 1:00 p.m. game on Sunday against the Orioles, and it was Family Fun Day which meant the kids each received a Rays beanie, and there were lots of fun activities for the kids throughout the concourse. My dad and sister joined us for the fun, too!

Ready for some fun!

Ellie and Eric outside the stadium

Let's do this!

The one kids' activity we really wanted to do was have Topps baseball cards made for each of them. I promised Ellie ice cream if she smiled nice for the picture, and this is what I got:

Neither of them was particularly gung-ho about this plan.

And, this is what she got:

Mmm hmm.

So. Yeah. I think one of us got the short end of the stick there. And the other one got sprinkles.

We found our seats so Ellie could sit and eat her ice cream, and Heather went off in search of more food (french fries for E.J.!). We watched a couple innings from our seats, and E.J. loved it! He enthusiastically clapped whenever anyone else did (which meant he also cheered for the Orioles, which is an issue we'll address, but you know, baby steps). He also ate french fries by the fistful and climbed all over the seats. It was good times for him.

E.J. adores his Papa, and the fact that we were able to stay in our seats as long as we did was probably in large part thanks to E.J.'s willingness to just kick it on Papa's lap for a while.

Ellie sharing her ice cream and E.J. peeking around all, "Hey guys, whatcha eatin'?"

He's a happy boy!

Just your average unicorn, casually watching a baseball game

How many people does it take to protect E.J. from certain peril at a baseball game?

French fries!

Clapping and cheering!

Silly selfies!

Ellie and Aunt Heather sharing a laugh

Be still my heart! Father and son at their first MLB game together.

When the kids started getting a little too fidgety, we set out back to the concourse to find more things to do. We wandered around a bit, with the ultimate destination of the rays touch tank in mind, but alas, the line was epically long so we weren't able to see the rays. Next time!

Happy baby!

Run home, Ellie!

The whole gang

And then we called it a day. We had to get back to my dad's house to load up our stuff and hit the road back to Jacksonville so we could get in at a reasonable hour for dinner and bedtime. We had a great afternoon at the ballpark, though, and we look forward to many more games together as a family!

The end of a fun afternoon!