Cheering on Our Astros

I mentioned in an earlier post that Connor was rewarded with a trip to see his Houston Astros for his excellent performance in six years of elementary. He picked a game in mid-June when the Astros were playing their rivals the Rangers. The Rangers also happen to be his Granddaddy's team, so of course we had to invite Granddaddy to come with us.

Connor and the entire family were so excited to see the Astros play, especially because they were having a great 2017 season already. The last time Connor had attended an Astros game was, well, a LONG time ago! Take a look:

Yep, Connor was about 2 years old the last time we went to see our Astros play! So he was way overdue for a trip to see his team play, especially since his love for baseball has grown tremendously in the past few years.

On the day of the game, we loaded up to head to the stadium early for batting practice. Lots of big smiles and excitement for the evening game.

We missed the batting practice for our team, but we made our way to the famous Crawford Boxes in the outfield to try to catch some balls while the Rangers had their batting practice. And wouldn't you know, our lucky little girl actually managed to catch one of the balls thrown up to her by a Ranger! He must not have seen the orange on her shirt!

After batting practice, we wandered around to take in the stadium sights. Connor and Kaitlynn tried the kids' pitching station to measure their pitch speed. We also entered a drawing and managed to be handed 6 free tickets to the next home game on the upcoming Saturday night! (We ended up having to give the tickets to friends because Connor had a baseball tournament that night, but how cool?!)

When the start of the game approached, we went to some seats near the 1st base line to try to get a better view of the pre-game festivities. Our seats were up in the nosebleed section, but it never hurts to try your luck with some empty seats, right?? (Let it be known that this was Jeff's idea. Granddaddy and I were not fans of taking other peoples' seats until they showed up, ha!)

Well, as it turned out, we had the BEST time in those "borrowed" seats before the game. We noticed that some of the players were giving autographs down by the field, so Connor and Kaitlynn took her brand new MLB baseball and managed to get an autograph from 3rd-baseman Alex Bregman. Not long after that, the kids were standing down by the field when Astros fan favorite, Jose Altuve, walked over for autographs. And wouldn't you know, he walked straight to Connor and Kaitlynn! I managed to get photos of Altuve signing the kids' baseball. You can see Connor waving at him and then he signed their ball. The kids were ECSTATIC!

Kevin joined us for the game and we eventually made our way to our assigned seats in the upper deck. Our home team didn't have a great showing for the game, but we ended up winning the series against the Rangers. We had such a fun night cheering on the Astros, and it was even more special to have my Dad join us.