Home Not-so-Sweet Home

So, I'm back in Illinois. And are you kidding me? Snow?! I want to go back to Florida.

We were up bright and early this morning, 3:30 AM eastern time to be exact. Our flight left West Palm Beach at 6:00 this morning. We were slightly concerned because the rental car place is not actually on the airport grounds. There is a shuttle that takes you between the airport and the car rental place. And they didn't open until 5:00. That's cutting it kinda close. But all went well. We checked all our luggage curbside and dad went to return the car while April, mom and I went through security to the gate. Dad made it with plenty of time. We were a bit concerned when we first got on the flight as there was a small child that was screaming in the airport before we even got on the plane and of course that family was sitting right across he aisle from us. Luckily he calmed down and slept the whole way. We changed planes in Atlanta with no problem. Two random things that happened there. When we got to our gate for our plane we discovered that a woman my mom works with was randomly flying back from vacation and was on the same plane as us and in the same row as my mom. Second, and this is a bit disturbing....I believe we saw Ron Jeremy in the Atlanta airport. I recognized him from his time on the Surreal Life on VH1 and from his guest spot on Kathy Griffin My Life on the D List. He was coming down the elevator with a large group while we were going up. And he is totally gross. Even more so in person. Ew. Why....I'm not even going to go there.

Anyways, so we hop on our plane ready to head home. And we sat on the runway for like 20-30 minutes waiting for our turn to depart. Apparently it was rush hour on the runway. We finally got in the air and I watched the bonus features from my new Twilight dvd. Then we started coming down. We broke through the clouds and hello snow. None of us had any sort of heavy coats, just Cardinals pullovers. Of course.

We had a bit of a rude welcome back to Illinois in two ways. First, when dad went to get the van he found that he had forgotten to close one of the back window flaps, so there was an inch of snow in the back of the van on one side. So he had to clean that out before we loaded up. Then I got my own personal welcome back. We were at the curb loading up our stuff in the van. I had just finished and was walking around to get in the car. Suddenly April went diving for the van and I couldn't figure out why. That is until I had a giant chunk of ice/snow land square on my head. It had fallen off the little awning/shelter at the curb designed to protect people from the elements. Didn't work out so well for me. I was covered in snow...in my hair, all over my jacket, in my purse. It didn't hurt, it mostly just stunned me. And it was cold! All I could do was laugh. We were all cracking up. That is just one of those things that would only happen to me. And the timing could not have been better. Seriously it could not have been scripted better in a movie. We were laughing because my purse simultaneously contained sand from the beach and snow. Not something that happens very often. Once we got down the road a bit April noticed that I was bleeding from the head. Of course. Nothing major. Just a little cut right smack dab in the middle of my forehead just below the hairline. Just perfect for display in Jane's wedding next week. Typical. Just another bit of proof that Mr Klutzy, Joe Mather, and I are meant for each other. April claims that if we were to ever have kids we would have our own room permanently reserved in the ER.

We made it back to mom and dad's without any further issues. April hung out for a bit while we skimmed through the game we had DVR'd on Wednesday as Jane told us that she had seen us on the game. There were several times you could see us kicked back on the berm. So that was cool. Then April headed for home and I slept for most of the afternoon. It was an exhausting week!

At the moment I am torturing myself by watching the replay of the Cards game in Ft Myers today. It was supposed to be on this afternoon but was delayed due to rain and they are just now playing it because there was a Blues game on. I know that we are going to lose 5-3, but oh well. I can't believe how lucky we got with the weather while we were down there. It rained for 3 days prior to our arrival in Florida and apparently poured today after we left but it did not rain at all while we were there. At least not during the day when it would cause us any problems. So lucky. Not so much when we got home though.

Day 7: The Final Day

Last day here in Florida. It was another good day, but a sad day too. We don't want to go home. We hear it is snowing there. It was like 85 here today. We started off the day at practice as usual. Not a whole lot going on there. We almost got Joel Pineiro's autograph which would have given us the entire staring rotation. However we missed him by a couple people. Albert was a nice surprise. He was supposed to stay over in Ft Myers for the weekend but opted to come home for practice instead. We watched him a bit but then headed up to get in line for our berm seats. Of course later we found out that he stayed and signed for people when he was done. Not sure for how long but there were quite a few people there so I am sure we would not have gotten it even if we had stayed.

We got a prime spot right in the front of the berm in the middle. And it worked out even better for us when they put the water cooler right in front of us. Anyone who wanted water had to stand right in front of us. More on that in a minute. So much fun stuff happened while we were on the berm today. There was a little girl, about 4 years old, that pretty much had the entire bullpen wrapped around her little finger. She was super chatty and not at all shy. Everytime a new player would come out before the game she would go running over asking them to sign her ball. As the game went on she became more brave, just going up and starting random conversations with them. She was talking to Frankie about her gum. She was crying for some reason at one point and Brad Thompson and Jason Motte were very concerned, asking her if she was ok (no) and what was wrong. The best however was the LONG conversation she had with Jason Motte. He is very animated so she was really enjoying talking to him. Somehow they were talking about her cat, Felix. Jason was talking about his cat. She asked if his cat uses the bathroom outside. He told her no, it uses the litter box. Her response..."I want to used he litter box!" He was like "Well, if you were a cat then yes, you could use the litter box. But you are a person and people should really use the bathroom." Before she left Jason told her to tell Felix the cat hi for him. It was cute.

Other random stories from the day:
-While Kyle was signing my ball I asked him if the cooler scooter would be back this year. He kinda laughed and said no, it was being retired. I of course told him that made us sad as we all love the cooler scooter.
-We have a new member of the staring brigade. Jaime Garcia is now in on it. April noticed it the other day, but I just noticed today because it was really obvious. He was sitting like 5 feet from us so it was quite obvious when he was looking right at us. It was even worse when he was going to get water and standing right in front of us. We couldn't even look up at those points.
-Brad Thompson was going to pass a ball around the bullpen to sign for Sid the usher. His pen wasn't working so he turned back to us and asked "Can I borrow one of your pens we just used? I promise I will give it back." He had just signed for us a few minutes before and knew we had pens. April had hers handy so she tossed it to him. So April saved the day.
-The guys were giving Chris Perez a hard time because he tossed a foul ball into the stands and hit a little kid. It didn't hit him very hard and it just got his shoulder a bit. Not enough to hurt him, just enough to scare him and get his eyes to well up a bit on the verge of tear. Thompson and Motte were like "Way to go Chris! You made him cry! He didn't even want the ball and you hit him in the face! Look! Now he's bleeding!" etc. It was amusing.
-Joe is totally perfect for me. Why you ask? Because he seems to be a total klutz like me. Or at least he has been this week. Earlier this week he had the run in with the umbrella. Today he completely fell out of the dugout on his way up the stairs and nearly ate field. He caught himself with his arm on the way up after stumbling a bit.

Finally, our last Frankie run ins of the week. He didn't notice us there at first as he was late getting out on the field (shocking). Soon after the game started Marty Mason came over to get some water. He got back to his seat, sat down, said something to Frankie and next thing Frankie is hopping up with a sudden need for water. He stood in front of the cooler for several minutes dawdling. We were just waiting for him to say something. Finally he waved. We said hi and told him we fly home tomorrow. He gave us another pouty face. Then he said, "Well we are only here for another week, then we are back in STL." April said "Yeah, but that's another week that I could be here watching baseball instead of being at work." Frankie said "who needs work?" Later he came back for more water and while standing there he started pulling out random bags of sunflower seeds from their seed stash (they seriously have like 6 different kinds of seeds) and offereing them to us. We were like "No thank you, that's ok, we're good." Then he offered gum. We were like "Now that we will take you up on." He started to thrown it to us but then was like "Wait a minute..." and started digging through their stash and pulled out another kind of gum and was like "This is sugar free. It's better for you." He threw each of us a piece first. Then he grabbed a handful and threw it on our towel we were sitting on. We shared with a couple people beside us we had made friends with, some of the kids around us grabbed some (including the cute little girl....it was the gum she was discussing with Frankie as mentioned earlier), and I believe April still has some in her purse. The guy beside us was like "I think you 2 have a fan." We had to tell him the story.

Sadly the game was coming to a close and just as last year Frankie was the last pitcher we saw, closing out our vacation. Unfortunately we lost, but what are you gonna do. The first pitch he threw ended up being a home run, which was not good. We decided that he was just upset that we were leaving and he wasn't focused enough yet ;)

The last few hours have not gone so great. April's phone crapped out. We had to find an AT&T dealer and found out that it is her phone and she was like 3 weeks past her warranty so she has to pay for a new phone (or at least the part insurance doesn't cover) and won't get her new one for a couple days. So that was not good. However on the way there we did drive through an interesting site. For like a full mile down one road we were on we saw more "pimped rides" than I have ever seen in my entire life. The Spring Bling party with Flo Rida and Busta Rhymes was flowing out onto the streets. Spinner, big rims, cars jacked up so high people could almost walk under them, crazy paint jobs.....there was all kinds of stuff. My favorite was the car painted with the Smurfs. There were actual pictures of different Smurfs and Gargumel. I'm not sure exactly how that is supposed to look tough and cool, but I enjoyed it. Here is the pic I took of it with my phone...



We have to be up crazy early in the morning to catch our flight home. Hopefully all goes well and I will see you all soon.

Day 6: The Write Up

Ok, so we never got this all typed up last night so I am going to try to get this all caught up tonight before we leave tomorrow. Lots to report on Day 6 from Jupiter. April and I got up and headed in to practice in the morning while mom and dad dropped us off and headed down to Palm Beach for a boat/yacht show. Most of the team was over in Ft Myers for a game against the Red Sox. However the players that stayed behind had practice and/or a practice game on the backfields with the Triple A Memphis team. When we were walking up we could see that the players were already out playing catch and loosening up. Suddenly April says "Is that a 31 or a 37?" We quickly realized that it was in fact 31. Frankie didn't go on the road trip so we still had an opportunity to get our balls signed and have our picture with him. We then did a happy dance. We went up and sat in our normal spot in the bleachers and watched the pitchers take fielding practice. Once they were done literally everyone except for Frankie went over to the other side of the field. Frankie walked over towards our side of the field. We waited for him to look up and say something. Finally he looked at us and said "Hey ladies". We said hi and told him that we were afraid that he was going to be on the road trip and we would not see him for the rest of the weekend. He said nah. Then we told him that he missed it because we wore the shirts the day before in the stadium thinking he would be gone the rest of the weekend. He told us that he was out pitching on the backfields to get some innings in. We told him that we found that out after we got back home that night. He said "What? Who didn't give you the memo" We told him that Marty (aka the bullpen coach, aka "Perry") was slacking on the job. He just shook his head and said "Marty". April then told him that he still needed to sign our balls for us sometime and he said "Sure, come on over I'll do it right now." At this point there were only 2 other people over on our side of the field. There were about 10-15 people over on the other side. Frankie walked over to the short fence behind the bleachers we were sitting on to meet up with us and sign our balls. He made a comment about the sign that said "No fans beyond this point" but said that we were ok to come back anyways. Then we grabbed one of the guys in the bleachers to take a picture for us. The guy was taking kind of a long time and was making some smart alek comments, I don't even remember what it was. Frankie was kinda making fun of him and said quietly to us "Yeah, whatever you say buddy." Then I noticed that like everyone from the other side was running over for autographs now. I was like "I'm sorry, I think we started a trend." Then he noticed the other people coming over and was like "Crap". We got out of his way and he signed for everybody. As he was walking away after that we told him that tomorrow was our last day and he did a little pouty face and was like "I'll see you in STL thought right?" We told him of course. Then he had to head back to practice. So we were completely pumped after that meeting. We continued to watch practice which at this time consisted of the pitchers taking batting practice. It was only Carp, Adam, Joel and Todd as Lohse was pitching in Ft Myers that day. They were having their own little home run derby, which was quite amusing. Adam was killing everybody. Then there was a little excitement because Carp hit one really well that they thought was going to go out. It hit right at the bottome of the wall. However he did better his next at bat. He hit it out. All the guys threw their hands up in the air and were cheering and yelling. Carp was quite excited and was jumping around like a little kid. It was so cute. I missed the hit itself, but here is a little clip of the aftermath....



So after the boys finished BP we headed off to the backfields to watch the Triple A game. We knew for sure that Joe and Brendan were playing in that game as we could see a little of it from practice. We got back there and there was hardly anyone back there except for players and coaches. The players we knew in the game were: Joe Mather, Brendan Ryan, Joe Thurston, Jason LaRue, Brian Barden, Brian Barton, Blake Hawksworth, Nick Stavinoha, Tyler Greene, PJ Walters, Brett Wallace and Brian Anderson. There were a very few fans, but not many. We did see John Mozeliak and Red Schoendienst back there. We sat down on one of the sets of bleachers and started watching. It is too bad that it would have been completely obvious if I had taken pics as Joe was walking around without his hat a bunch. After a bit we noticed a woman walk up and sit down right down the bench from us with 3 little boys. April was like "That has to be LaRue's family...the middle kid looks exactly like him only with blonde hair." Pretty soon we discovered that April was correct. The littlest one was all of a sudden very excitedly exclaiming "Look! Daddy is the catcher!" He was very excited to see daddy. At one point Jason was going up to bat and the little one was clapping his hands and saying "Go Daddy!" He was adorable. He was very upset that his mom would not let him go in the dugout to see his dad and had a little fit about it. His mom was holding him on his lap and he definitetly took off his flip flops and threw them as hard as he could. Cute moment of the day happened after Jason came out of the game and came around to see them. He was squatted down talking to them and had a little boy laying on each shoulder. All together now.....Awwwwww. We thoroughly enjoyed the LaRue family. They were just a very cute and mostly well mannered family. Jason's wife, Heather, was not at all "player's wife" that people sometimes imagine. She seemed very down to earth and normal, like a person you could just meet on the street. Don't get me wrong, she was very pretty, but she was not a fake Barbie doll.

Soon after there was another group of girls/ladies that came in and sat right next to us. We gathered from their conversation that they were players wives/girlfriends/fiances. April and I being the good investigator that we are managed to figure out who they all were. The fakest and most dim witted of the group was Blake Hawksworth's fiance. As April said, she looked like you could pull a plug and she would deflate. Nick Stavinoha's wife and child were there and they were another normal group that we enjoyed. There was a girl who we believe is PJ Walters wife was very quite and normal as well. Then there was Brian Barden's wife and daughter. She was another genius. One of the coaches wives was there as well, but we don't know what coach. Here are a few of the gems we took away from those conversations....

1. The first 3 topics of conversation: Exercising, getting their nails done and diamond size. I am so not kidding. As for the diamond size conversation we heard a a very cute story. Nick's wife was wearing a small diamond solitaire on her right hand. She was explaining that it was her original engagement ring and that Nick had to pay for his own college so he skipped meals in order to save the money to buy her the ring. How sweet, right? Hawksworth's fiancee laughed at this and was making fun saying "He had to save his lunch money to buy you a ring." Rude much?
2. Barden's little girl is like a mini-me of him. Seriously, you put pig tails on him and make him 2 feet tall and you have his daughter. However we did discover she is a bit of a diva in the making. At 2 years old she refused to go to the bathroom at the diamond because it was "yucky", she wouldn't let anyone touch her purse or her fake makeup that she was applying while sitting there, and we found out that when she first started crawling she would crawl to her mom's purse, pull out the money and crawl away. Teaching gold digging young?
3. Brian's wife left to go on a walk and get in some exercise with the coaches wife. She left her daughter with the other girls. She hadn't been gone all that long before the other girls started talking about her and her lack of parenting skills, saying she was always dumping the little girl off on other people.
4. Both Tyler Greene and Kyle Lohse's wives are pregnant and expecting in the fall.

After the game was over we headed off for lunch while waiting for mom and dad to come pick us up. Then we headed off to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. It was crazy windy and we were getting pelted with sand constantly. We will be washing sand out of our hair for a week.

And as a continuation of a comment yesterday....2 more people came up to us today and asked us about how our week had been going since we had talked to them. We do not remember talking to them. I belive we were asked at one point "You're the Franklin girls right?" Yes, we are.

Autograph count: Frankie's was the only one today and that puts us at 20.

Picture Count: Just Frankie which puts us at 8.

Day 6: Frankie!

More to come later after dinner, but here is a little something for now.

Day 5: Go Home Mets (and Mets Fans)

First an update on last night. After the game we went to Jumby Bay for an early dinner. April, dad and I had the pork chops...not as good as they were last year but still pretty good. And while we were sitting there Matt Pagnozzi and several other minor leaguers came in to eat as well. Twice at Jumby's and two times spotting recognizable Cards players. 2-for-2...high five :) (Just for you Ange). We came back later in the evening attempting to go 3-for-3 but it was a total bust. The only person there we recognized was the creepy old guy (definitely 60's) who had been trying to hit on us while we were there Monday night. I spotted his car when he pulled up and we both were definitely ducking and dodging out of the bar to try to avoid him.

So this morning we headed back to practice and it was a good morning. Frankie came out with all the relievers and was chatting on his way by...something about living in a car. Don't know what that was about. Carp was in a very good mood as he had a big grin on his face and greeted everyone in the stands as he went by. When asked how he was, his response was (no joke Jane) "Fabuolous!" We pretty much spent the morning watching batting practice. The relievers headed in and April and I missed our moment with Frankie as he was too fast for us. We thought our shot was over, but he came back out to "shag" balls during BP....and by "shag" I mean stand in one spot with his hand in his pants a la Al Bundy. He did grab a couple balls that came within a few feet of him, but that was pretty much it. We were waiting for practice to be over for him to come in and chat, however we got sidetracked getting autographs and he left before we were done. So we thought we would just get him back inside the stadium at the game. Plan in place.

Or so we thought. We staked out a prime spot in the front row right by the bullpen in our Franklin shirts waiting patiently at first. However as time went on we were thinking seriously Frankie...we know you are always the last one out but this is getting ridiculous. Finally the game started and people came for the seats we were "borrowing" so we had to leave, no Frankie. The bullpen guys had definitely spotted us sitting there in our shirts and got a bit of a chuckle when we had to leave but oh well. We were just annoyed at the lack of Frankie. After we got home tonight we found out that he was back pitching in the Triple A game on one of the backfields. So we can't be totally mad at him for not coming in to the game. Still annoying though. Nobody goes to the games on the backfields. We could have had a nice chat with him.

The game itself was not so hot. We lost. It wasn't pretty. Colby totally muffed a fly ball in right field that would have been a 3rd out and it was all downhill from there. I think the Mets scored like 6 runs in one inning. Not good. It didn't help that we were all exhausted and bummed at the lack of Frankie. Plus even though we still have 2 days left it was starting to feel like the last day as most of the starters are heading to Ft Myers tomorrow for the Red Sox game and are staying over until the game on Sunday against the Twins, so it was our last chance to see Albert, Yadi, Rick, Monkey and several others. So it was almost like it was our last day.

There were a few funny moments today...

-After Albert's superb display of golf cart driving skills yesterday it appeared that he was revoked his driving privileges. Ludwick was the driver for Yadi and Albert today.
-We almost caught a foul ball today. The guy right in front of us got it instead. Then some woman behind us tried to guilt him into giving it to a little girl. When he gave it to his wife instead the woman said "No, I said to give it to a CUTE little girl!" and she very much emphasized the word "cute". The wife was like "Thanks....that was a little rude." I told her that I agreed.
-Apparently we are quite memorable girls. On multiple occasions this week we have had someone come up to us to ask us how our week was going, what we did last night, whose autographs we got today, etc. We have figured out that they are people who have been around us at some point during games or practice. They remember us and ask how it is going even though we usually don't know who they are. They will refernce some conversation we apparently had with them 2 days ago that we do not remember but they do. So apparently we are making quite the impression on folks down here in Jupiter and building ourselves a bit of a reputation/fan base. The mom and daughter that sat behind us a couple days ago (the World Series ball folks) saw us today and left the berm to come talk to us about what we have been up to since we last saw them and told us about the rest of their week. They also needed help identifying an autograph their friend's child had gotten so we as unofficial autograph identifiers were able to help them out. Again. We are just finding it all very amusing.


As for the rest of the day...Mets fans suck. They are loud and obnoxious and not enjoyable. The one exception was the Mets fan whose seats we were "borrowing" before the game started. She told us that she and who I am assuming was her daughter wanted to sit on the Mets side, so if they found a place over there to sit we could have their seats. That was very nice of her. Of course they never moved and later I saw her taking her daughter's picture with Matt Pagnozzi. Excuse me....I thought you were a Mets fan. Which brings us to the fact that all the stupid Mets fans were sitting in all the good seats in the front row. They could have cared less that the bullpen was right there. Give those seats to people who truly appreciate them....like us!

Today's autograph update: We are now up to 19! We have both started ball #2 and have surpassed last year's totals. Today's additions were Todd Wellemeyer, Kyle Lohse (aka Captain Stares-A-Lot...he is seriously staring at us like all the time: On his way out to practice, during practice, during warm ups in the stadium before the game. I noticed it for a couple days before I said anything to April, thinking it was just my imagination, but when I finally mentioned it she was like "OMG! I was thinking the exact same thing!" So maybe we aren't losing our minds. We even have photographic proof. Multiple times.), Chris Carpenter, Chris Perez and Jaime Garcia.

Picture Update: We are up to 7 now. Today we got our pics with Carp and Captain Stare-a-Lot...I mean Kyle Lohse. Sadly this is the better of the 2 pic options we had with Carp. The wind caught my hair during the pictures and the other one is even more Donald Trump hair looking. Figures.

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

Spring Training: A Rant

So not everything is all sunshine and flowers this week. A few things that have gotten on our nerves:

1. Too many children--remind us to never come to spring training this late again. I think every child from the greater St Louis area is on spring break and are here this week. Practices have been crazy. The berm was a crazy mess with kids running amuck. And the parents could care less. Watch your children!!! I don't appreciate them stepping on my nice white Cardinals jacket. April is not a fan of being kicked in the back repeatedly. And stop standing up in front. You are blocking our view of Frankie. And the game.
2. Stupid Parents: When your child who is barely walking is using the staircase as their own personal jungle gym and the usher gives polite hints that you should stop them, don't send your only slightly older child to go get them. Put down your beer, get off your butt and take care of your kid. I told Sid he was a saint for putting up with it. He would give polite hints to have kids stop and the parents just weren't getting it "Who does this belong to? I think your mom wants you." Mom's resoponse "No I don't") I know you are on vacation but you chose to bring them here and they are your responsibility.
3. Rude people: Professional autograph seekers. Annoying fans. Stupid parents. Whoever. A few etiquette rules: Do not stand/sit on someone else's blanket. Do not step on their belongings. Do not stand in front of people who are trying to watch the game in order to take pics (squat in front like April and I do). Do not try to squeeze yourself into a spot on the berm that obviously is too small for you. Do not give the usher the finger because he has told your child that he cannot be there without a ticket for the berm. And if you are an adult, you should know better than to try to get Jason Motte's attention to have a chat in the middle of a game because you are wearing a shirt with the name of his hometown on it. Especially when he is sitting next to the bullpen coach. And don't argue with the coach when he tells you he can't talk as he has to pay attention to the game. Grrrr.
4. Skanky girls...you are gross. You are not cute. You are not funny. Your clothes would probably not fit a preschooler. The attention you are getting is not good attention. It is girls like you that give the nice girls like us a bad name. Also, it is probably not a good thing to put things such as "Future Mrs (insert player name here)" on a t shirt. FYI...the people on your shirt are married. With children. Perhaps that might be a bit of a road block. But judging by how you look...perhaps it is not. Yes, April and I chat with Frankie and he is married, but it is all in fun. We are not homewreckers and we are not hitting on him. He is just a ham and we think he is funny. End of story. He is just our buddy. And do not try to get them to kiss you in a picture (this means you trashy girl Cub fan). Leave the poor boys alone to live their life.

I think that pretty much covers it for now. Just had to get that off our chests.