Celebrating the 4th at the Bees Game

This year I went with the Sharp family (and Dennis and Jaime) to the SL Bees game on July 4.  It's a great way to spend an evening, and comes with the fireworks ... so it's kinda a "twofer." 

I'm not a huge fan of baseball games in and of themselves, mostly because I think they move too slowly to be interesting, and probably also because I don't understand everything about the game.  But I actually do think it's a fun way to spend some time, as long as you're going with people that you like.  Which I do.  Like the Sharps and Dennis and Jaime, I mean.

The game went on quite long, with the teams tied for most of the innings.  I was saved from becoming too bored by taking Kaiya and Teague for a potty/treat break, and finding a "balloon lady" (someone who makes balloon animals/characters for tips - it's a pretty cheap entertainment for kids).  But, even after we finally got back (Steph sent me a text while we were gone ... "Is everything ok with you guys?"), the game continued to go on and on.  Finally, it's the 9th inning and Tacoma is up to bat first.  They don't do anything.  At this point, it's getting late, kids are starting to get cranky and so are adults - they're just slightly better at hiding it.  I don't know if everyone felt this way, but WE began to almost wish for Tacoma to do something so that we didn't end up going into extra innings.  It was late, all the rest of the fireworks in the rest of the valley were long since over. So SL is up at the bottom of the 9th.  Tacoma very deliberately walks the first three hitters, so the bases are loaded.  And then - a Grand Slam!  The crowd went wild, of course, both with happiness for a Grand Slam (because who isn't happy when your team does that?), but also because it is obviously the end of the game, we won, and now can we have our dang fireworks please?  I'm not saying that this was all done deliberately - after all, who could possibly count on a Grand Slam, although even one run would have done the job - but it was a heck of a way to end the game.  I can't help but wonder if the crowd's antsy-ness was a factor.  PLUS, apparently Denny's has this deal where every person at a game gets a free Denny's Grand Slam breakfast if the team does a Grand Slam in the bottom of the 9th inning.  That's kind of random, but fun for the crowd to hear. 

The fireworks were awesome (though my pic of it is not - gotta learn the secret of taking pictures of fireworks).  It was a great way to spend the Fourth.