Opening Day, 2014

Yes, I made it out alive. Real life just gets in the way of blogging. Oops. Anyways....BASEBALL! 

Opening Day Night. The tailgate/barhop started at 10:30 am...for a 5:00 pm game. We were ready to party. The season ticket crew plus a lame-o Dodger fan packed into a truck and headed towards downtown San Diego. We parked in the tailgate lot and used our pre-purchased parking ticket because planning ahead rocks. Cruised over to Bub's and met up with some friends for some breakfast and Mama's Peach Tea. And Fireball. And life size Connect 4. After that, we headed to Barleymash...because St. Germain Sangria. It was a little different than the time before, but still so good. After thattttt...Titled Kilt. More booze. After thatttttttt, back to the tailgate lot to meet up with more friends, close out the party and head into the game. Photos of the same 8 people in similar poses for your viewing pleasure:

I'm not a fan of repping your gang with peace signs in photos...Chels knows this, but it happens. And this is the look you get from me when it happens. Whatever. She gets a pass for it today A) Because everyone does it now just so I can get upset. I've learned that no real reaction (or vocal scolding for it) is the best reaction. B) Because it's Chelsea's birthday today and she gets to do whatever she wants...within the law. Or without, as long as she doesn't get caught. Happy Birthday ChewSaw <3

via, edited.

We scored probably my most favorite Opening Day tee's, camouflage print and a Jerry Coleman star. Headed to our seats, watched the opening ceremonies, PLAY BALL! Wandered around the stadium, saw a tri tip sandwich sign, spent $10 on a sandwich, and was left very disappointed. Sat in front of 2 very annoying, sort of racist dudes. Padres took the lead and won the first game of the season. Headed back home in the most awkward ride home ever. Being nice to a veryyyy drunk girl who is in love with one of the dudes in the truck makes for some great jokes that will never get old. And that's it.  

Did you go to Opening Day? Or any of the games played thus far this season? Do you plan to? You better! Because BASEBALL!

Also, a super sweet giveaway where you can use your winnings towards sweet stuff to wear to your next game! Make sure you check everyone who is part of it out and of course, make sure to enter! P.S. Guessing game time! I'm on the bottom left...can you guess what stadium my photo was taken at?! The winner gets nothing extra other than the satisfaction of knowing you get it right!  

Kristin : Brandi : Michelle : Lisa : Kelly

Marty : Emily : Chelsee

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4 Obvious Reminders For MLB Opening Day

MLB Opening Day. My favorite day of the year <3

There’s a few different “Opening Day” celebrations happening this year. The first is the officially official Opening Day of 2014 which actually happened a week ago when the DBacks played against the Dodgers in Australia. The second is Opening Night which is this Sunday, March 30th, Padres v. Dodgers at Petco Park…the game I’ll be attending :] The third is Opening Day which is Monday, March 31st. The last "Opening Day" is your respective team’s Home Opener which might happen Opening Night/Day orrrr you might have to wait at least 3 games for their away series to finish up before they head home and have their Home Opener. Regardless of what Opening Day you’ll be attending, baseball season is starting and that’s a wonderful thing. So there’s some things you should know for that first home game of the year…

BUT FIRST! Let’s start with a small font disclaimer. I might not be totally qualified on advising of things to know for Opening Day. Even though my friends and I have been to first home game of the season at Petco Park for the last (at least) 4 years…I wasn’t totally “there” ifyouknowwhatimean. #toodrunktofunction. Also...these suggestions are based on opening day and busy games at Petco Park. Some suggestions might totally apply to your local stadium, others won’t. Sorry ‘bout it.

Tickets. 
Do you have any? If you’re planning on going to the game, I’d suggest getting some. At this point, it might be a little too late for some of you because Opening Day might be sold out. That’s the case with the Padres…Opening Night sold out about a month ago, so anyone looking for face value tickets is kind of SOL. The remaining options are overpriced Stubhub, unknown third party ticket sites, sketchy Craigslist, or scalpers. If you find a sweet deal, awesome! You can totally keep reading. If not, and you don’t have tickets, bookmark this for next year when you plan ahead! If you don't have tickets but still want in on the action, head to a bar near the stadium and watch it on tv! You'll most likely be among others who failed in getting a ticket having just as much fun! 

Parking. 
I haven’t had much trouble with this, but I know how much of a pain in the ass it can be. For starters, consider traffic. Leave with enough time to either totally avoid traffic altogether, or budget enough time to be okay with be moving at a crawl…or slower and maybe miss some of the game. Everyone and their mom goes to Opening Day, and since everyone is headed to the same area, the roads are gonna get backed up. Also, because everyone is going to the same area, everyone is probably going to be parking in the same area too. Don't get stuck without a parking spot! If you can, buy parking passes in advance. That way you know you've got a guaranteed spot no matter how late you leave and how much traffic you sit in. You don't want to spend 40 minutes looking for parking half a mile away and pay $40.  

Transportation. 
How are you getting to the game? And home from the game? Alive? I hope so! The most important point with this is to make sure you've got a sober driver. To and from the game. If everyone wants to party, look into public transportation or hiring a driver! 3 years ago my friends and I took the train and trolley to Opening Day. From what I can remember, it was kind of a blast. We were able to bring booze on the train, party on the way down, and had reliable transportation! If you gave your limo driver the night off, download an app (Uber/Lyft...whatever) and have someone pick you up! Or book a night at a hotel in the area and walk/cab it. The other thing to keep in mind with transportation is to make sure you think about traffic. If you're anything like me, you'd rather be an hour early than 5 minutes late! You don't want to leave home/work too late, get stuck in backed up rush hour and game day traffic, and miss the first pitch!

Pregame. 
Load up a truck with some tailgate necessities: booze, food, bbq, tables, corn hole, etc. Head to the stadium early and party before game time. Why? A) Getting to the area early enough to tailgate means you've most likely avoided backed up traffic and have a better chance at being on time to the game! B) If you're there early, that means parking lots aren't crowded yet and you've got a better shot at getting a spot! C) $15 bottle of Fireball for everyoneeee beats 2 $8 shots of Fireball at the stadium/bars. D) PARTY! Just make sure to drink responsibly. And if you don't, hopefully someone is keeping an eye out for you making sure you're safe! Thanks friends for helping me with that last year!)

Our Plan.
Season Ticket Crew+1 are headed to Opening Night. The game is at 5:00-ish, but we're headed down at 10:00 for some brunch. Followed by some bar hopping for sangria!. Followed by some tailgating. Followed by the game. Followed by...work Monday morning. Hopefully we make it out alive!

Is anyone going to Opening Night/Day or your Home Opener? What are your plans for the day? Let me know!

Also, can I just mention how excited I am to be co-hosting Fan Friday this week? Other than my love for baseball,  I'm kind of obsessed with Sarah over at Venus Trapped In Mars. I kind of love sports a lot. So when I started blogging, and reading blogs, my main search was for other bloggers like me who love sports too...with no luck. Until my friend Kayyyyyy did a guest post for Sarah and the rest is history! Because of her Fan Friday link up, I've been able to find so many other sports loving bloggers like myself! And I love it! 

TL;DR: I love sports. I'm obsessed with Sarah, her blog, and Fan Friday. Thanks for letting me co-host!

If you're sharing anything baseball related today, make sure you link-up!

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Friar Feud

Guess who is back for Fan Friday?!! ME! 

It's been a longggg while since I last blogged about baseball...if you don't count Wednesday.

Fair warning...this post is a little wordy, but worth it once you get to the videos! Anyways... I mentioned in that Wednesday post is that I got to do Friar Feud at a Padres game a few weeks ago! Friar Feud is  their version of Family Feud, where 100 people are asked a question and you have to guess what the most popular answer was. 

I got a call from our season ticket rep about 6 hours before the ball game and asked if a couple of us would like to do it and I told him I'm sure two of us (out of five) would be down. He put us down and it was game on for that night! I kind of started to freak out because these questions are usually about history, and gold gloves, and averages, and titles, and so on and I'm more of a master of the game of baseball being played on the field...not so much on the team's history! I wasn't sure if I should study, what I SHOULD study, how far back I should go, etc. So I kind of just said screw it, I'll wing it. Between Marcus and I (he was the other person in our group that volunteered to do it) we shouldn't be too far off. 

We cruise down to the stadium, watch a couple innings of the game, and am picked up by one of the Pad Squad people and we pretty much power walk to where we needed to be...which was behind home plate. While we're hustling to get around to the other side of the stadium I ask the chick if she knew the question...and maybeeee the answers. She didn't know either. Damn. Once we got to the area where it took place, we had some time to chill. It was then where I learned that this wasn't a team thing and that it was gonna be me against some other girl. They wouldn't let me switch with Marcus either because it had to be girl vs. girl. Damn. Now the pressure is really on!

So in the 20 minutes we had to chill, our Pad Squad person scored the question AND ANSWERS! Sweet. We do a little pow wow to the side and she reads me the question. I immediately knew 2 of the answers before she had a chance to tell me them...and Marcus can TOTALLY vouch for me on that. After I give her the answers, she tells me...uhh those are good, but I'd go with this one since it's the first one on the list. Okay, cool. It's typed up on paper so it's gotta be official, no?

Nope. Check out the vids...

Marcus' view

Chelsea and Lime's view

First of all, how crazy antsy was I?!! Second of all...Gah! I was fed the wrong answer! Glenn Hoffman didn't even PLAY for the Padres! He's a base coach! Ugh. I do take some comfort in knowing that I did say Scott & Jerry Hairston AND Adrian & Edgar Gonzalez during the pow wow...but I didn't win the $50 Friar Funds...instead, I scored some random prize. Hahaha. Oh well, I guess that's what I get for cheating and not trusting myself! 

I've got my last baseball games for the season in this next week, including 2 this weekend! So it'll be a good one :] Hope you all have a good weekend too!

Life Lately...Part 1

It’s been 20 longggg days since my last blog post. Oops. Life’s been a little crazy and school started…so blogging took a back seat. But, I’m sure you’re all having Marty withdrawls. Riiiiight. Ha. Anyways…I’ve done lots of cool blog worthy things, just never had the time to write about it. Gonna split it into a couple of posts though, because it's sort of a lot.

Luke Bryan-

I had been looking forward to this concert for months! Luke has a comfortable spot in the rotating top 3 favorite country music artists alongside Dierks Bentley and Lady Antebellum. A buddy of ours hosted a tailgate that started 7 hours before the concert! Got there around 1:00 pm and partied until 7:00 pm when the concert started! Florida Georgia line was the the 1st opening act and they totally won me over as a fan! I was kind of meh about them before this show, but they lit up the stage, and they had the lawn area filled up like I’d never seen it before…for an opening act! Thomspon Square came on stage after them and rocked some, but not as hard as FGL. Luke Bryan was the main event and I think my super duper high expectations of this guy blew it for me. It was a good show, he preformed all my favorites and shook his booty…but I was left a little underwhelmed. Oh well. Not a lot of pictures from this night because they were mostly on my camera instead of my phone.

SELFIEEEEE.

LIFE SIZE INFLATABLE BALL!

The crew :] Jessica and her peeps chilled with us too!

Padres v. Mets-

The season tickets crew (minus Ashley because her job is lame) caught a Thursday night game against the Mets. I got a call from our ticket rep while I was at work asking if we wanted to do “Friar Feud” and I said I’m sure one of the five of us would be down. I ended up being the one that did it…was asked to name two brothers that have both played for the Padres. I ended up losing and won this random consolation prize. You’ll hear more about this injustice on Friday…

ON TV/THE BIG SCREEN!

Random consolation prize for losing. Haha.

Stone17 Beerfest-

Stone is a local craft brewery in San Diego that tons of people love. I don’t drink beer, so I’m kind of meh about it…but their restaurant is pretty beautiful. They do an annual beerfest fundraiser for the local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, Surfrider, (and a 4^th organization I don’t remember) as their anniversary party. I had a friend who volunteered to be a beer pourer but couldn’t do it. It sounded like a cool event so I said I’d be down to do it! I learned that beer people are super serious about their beer. Haha. It was a lot of fun, hopefully I get to do it again next year! And I totally recommend any beer drinker friends to buy a ticket for next year…super fun and super cool event!

Padres v. Mets-

A friend from NY was in town for the week and we arranged to catch a Padres game together. We had brunch on the field and all the players and coaches were out to sign autographs for everyone. We got to meet Padres manager Bud Black a second time, 1^st baseman Yonder Alonso again, and our favorite bullpen catchers Justin Hatcher and Griffin Benedict! The NY-ers in town got lucky because the players rarely come out to say hey. Haha. It was a good game, Padres won with a walkoff!

Brent & I

Lime & I with Bud Black!

With Yonder Alonso!

Lime & I with Hatch & Benny

Oh! And met this super hot Mets catcher!

Mmmmkay. That's enough. Good stuff, right? Check back tomorrow for part 2!

Yankees v. Padres

After the Yankees v. Dodgers game, the weekend I had been anxiously awaiting for 11 months finally arrived. The New York Yankees were in San Diego playing the Padres. Not only was I excited to purchase tickets at face value instead of $75 a pop thanks to our season tickets, but Jeter was scheduled to come back after KO-ed for half the season, and it was the last opportunity I'd get to see Mariano Rivera save a game.

I love baseball weekends...or so I thought. This last one taught me that 3 days of partying is exhausting! I'm 17 days away from turning 25 but I felt like a grandma by game 3, and couldn't wait to get home and go to bed that night! 

Let's break down the weekend :]

Friday: 

I took the day off from work to get down to the stadium early and increase my chances of meeting Jeter and Mo. The gates were opened about 2 hours before game time, but people didn't have access to the field level seats until 1.5 hours before the game. 

The pitchers came out to left field to left field and throw and I'm pretty positive Mariano Rivera and David Robertson chose to warm up right in front of me after seeing my sign!

Yankees took the field to warm up, cue the Derek Jeter photos

<3

<33

<333

We got to sit in our regular seats for face value! These seats were selling for $120 on stubhub! Yankees ended up losing game 1, no Mariano. Whomp.

It was great to get Bettis for a couple of days!

hazyyyy nights!

:]

Saturday:

We woke up early-ish, had some bomb.com brunch, mimosas, and sangria at Barleymash. This was the start of our 5 hour barhop around downtown San Diego. We hit up Barleymash, Bub's at the Ballpark, South Paw, The Tilted Kilt, and The Corner. 

Fireball shots at Bub's!

Tequila shots at Southpaw...I might have done quacks here.

Riveting conversation at the Tilted Kilt

I see Kayyyyy! and a little bit of Joey G. at The Corner!

We eventually made it into the stadium, and watched the Yankees kick some butt, and  it was my last opportunity to see Mariano Rivera save a game.

We spent the night after the game barhopping, and on our way back to the place we were crashing at, we ran into Andrew Cashner...one of the Padres pitchers!

Another hazyyy nights pic with me not looking cute!

Sunday:

We RSVP'd for brunch on the field months ago because I would be that much closer to the Yankees. Unfortunately, the Yanks decided they would like to take batting practice that morning so we couldn't eat on the field. Instead, we were seated in the batter's eye...which wasn't as great as being on the field, but we got a pretty cool view!

Creeping on CC Sabathia throwing!

Scored an autograph!

The Yankees ended up dropping game 3 to the Padres and San Diego took the series. As great as is was to make it to all 3 games, I was ready for the game to be over and get home ASAP. Because of that, I wasn't as upset about the outcome as I should have been. It was definitely a fun little weekend, glad I got to see the Yanks in town, and hang out with so many people that I love. As exhausting as the weekend was...I look forward to the next one! Which probably won't be until 2014 since baseball is almost over. Wahhh.

Norwegia At The Ballpark

First and foremost...I need to pimp out my blog. I guess google reader is going to be donezo July 1st and bloglovin' is the hot new thing sooOoOOo follow me on bloglovin'!

My friend Linda is a Norwegian native who I met her 8 years ago when she was an exchange student at my high school senior year! She's been in town for like 2 weeks but Tuesday night was the first (and only, whomp) chance we'd have to get together. The original plans were to go out to dinner but they changed to a Padres game with Caroline at the last minute! 

My first beautiful crazy life (or whatever it's called) edit on IG!

I took her to a game back in 2006 when she was an exchange student and sat in the nosebleeds...pretty much the worst seats the stadium had to offer. Thanks "high school senior without a job" budget!

This time around we sat in my regular season seats and one of the first things she said was  that "we're pretty much on the field!" Movin' on up :] She was surprised that we were so close to the players in the bullpen too! 

We skipped the traditional hot dog & beer because she made it clear that she does not want a hot dog or like beer! I wanted pizza, so we walked half way around the stadium to grab my food hoping she'd see something that she'd want but instead followed suit with a slice as well! She works at a pizza place back in Norwegia and although it wasn't as great as hers...it was good. I'm gonna have to head over to Norway eventually because Filippi's is the best we've got to offer and I love a good pizza!

Once we had food and drinks, we sat down and enjoyed the game. Linda snapped tons of pictures, Caroline got her a ball, and the Padres were kind of playing suckball. We headed to bar in the Western Metal Supply Building in the 6th, ran into Poppa V., had a Cactus Cooler shooter, learned about the kind of drinks she orders in Norway (I don't know what it was called officially but it sounded like alkaseltzerfuckshit) and grabbed her a Kamikaze for the rest of the game.

Total baseball taboo...we missed the 7th inning stretch because we were chatting it up at the bar. Whoops. We made it back end of the game, the Padres almost made a comeback in the bottom of the 9th but no dice on a win, so the stupid Phillies took the series.

As always, there was traffic after the game so we cruised to Bub's to have a drink...

Caroline and I asked her questions about Norway, what the bar scene was like, did she go out dancing a lot, etc. She asked how many bars we've been to downtown and Caroline and I tried to count...but couldn't nail down a number. We guessed 15-20. Then it was time to head back home. Whomp.

Linda's IG recap of the game!

Linda is actually headed back to the land of vikings today so I'm glad I got to hang out with her for a few hours while she was here and got to share my love of baseball with her again <3 Hopefully she enjoyed herself :]  

As always [every Friday at least]...this post was brought to you by Sarah over at Venus Trapped in Mars with her Fan friday link up!

All of my link-ups for fan Friday have been the same lame thing about me attending ball games (not that lame though because baseball rocks!) so I'm gonna try and change it up next week!

Aaaaand again...follow me on bloglovin'!