Sports Fans

Our 3-week vacation has begun. DH had been down in San Diego taking a class for the past 2 weeks, so the boys & I flew down Monday night to join him. Direct flight from Anchorage to LAX - very nice! Now that AK air charges for checked bags, we carried on 2 bags & checked 1 + carseats (no charge for those, TG), made getting out of LAX relatively easy. (Finding the correct parking garage is another story..)

Our first event was attending the World Football Challenge on Tuesday night at the Rose Bowl. My favorite English Premiere League team, Chelsea FC, was playing. I've been pretty excited about this game & seeing my favorite player, Michael Ballack. However, come to find out the night before that MB had injured his toe during their stint in Seattle, and was flying home for treatment. What?!? Apparently there are better toe doctors in the UK? Oh well -

Team Stretch

We were seated in the Chelsea fan area- behind the south end goal. Not too bad, and the price was right. We were able to watch Petr Cech (goalkeep) warm up. Very exciting. This was also the goal Chelsea was shooting for during the 2nd half & where we were able to watch Lampard convert a penalty kick for a 2 - 0 lead. A man behind us gave my youngest a Chelsea flag to wave during the match. Apparently the man was from London, so the flag is truly authentic. He let us keep it & will be a nice adornment to my classroom this year.

Overall a great evening - Will Ferrell was the honorary captain for Chelsea, Charlize Theron was in attendance to support the Special Olympics, and I spied Ashton Kutcher (w/o Demi) sitting on the sidelines. Pretty fun. Finding our car was quite the challenge after - most fans were parked at the adjacent golf course & there was really no rhyme nor reason to finding your spot. We wandered the course in the dark for quite a bit before we were successful.


Day 2 of vacation brought us to Petco Park to watch the trouncing of the Padres by the Florida Marlins. Pretty quick game w/a 5 - 0 final in favor of Florida. Bummer... I guess all of our good karma for the team of choice wore off the night before.

The nice thing about the baseball game is that it provides plenty of opportunity for knitting. During the soccer match, you stand for the entire 90 minutes w/non-stop action. Not very conducive to knitting (at least not for me). So - I've almost finished sock #1 that I cast-on during our flight from Anchorage Monday evening. My goal is to finish at least 2 pairs of socks prior to Sock Summit.

Well - more to come. Plans during our San Diego visit include time at the pool, the beach, and a visit to the World Famous San Diego Zoo.

Perhaps some knitting photos on the next post. Before you log off for the day, be sure to wander over to Winston's Mom blog to wish her a happy birthday! Ciao!

Take Me Out To the Ball Game...

We've arrived at Wade's brother's house in San Diego. Okay - technically he lives in Carlsbad, which is north of S.D. But - when you've driven almost 5000 miles, it's close enough.

Today we went to Petco Park to watch the San Diego Padres take on the Florida Marlins. Let's cut to the chase - the Padres lost. Not much of an exciting game - 3 up, 3 down. Great pitching by the Pads, but horrible hitting. Apparently they forgot that in order to score - you have to get on base. In order to get on base, it's usually easier to hit the ball really far & run. Relying on the opposing pitcher to throw balls or hit you with a pitch is really a poor strategy. See - I don't even play baseball & I can figure that out!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had the opportunity to go to Germany last summer & attend a World Cup Soccer match. My friend Lisa & I went to the U.S. vs. Ghana game. The U.S. lost, but that didn't matter - it was the atmosphere & experience which made for an unforgettable time. During the excitement - I had time to ponder the striking differences between watching a soccer game vs. watching a baseball game.

Going to a game is a fun outing for the family. We sat on the third base line in row 11. A few foul balls were hit our way - that certainly gets your attention. I'm not a great baseball player by any stretch of the imagination & I was a bit worried about a ball bouncing off the tops of our heads. Fortunately we didn't have to worry this time. The fact that complete strangers can get together & celebrate a double play and commiserate a missed opportunity is fascinating. It's a great time to forget about the horrible things happening in the world. It's an opportunity for hope. Perhaps the World's leaders need to forget this war thing & agree to duke it out on the futbol pitch or baseball field. Again - just a thought.

Of course - another fun thing about a baseball game, is it provides great opportunities for knitting! :0)