Natalie goes to her first Rays game

My mission was simple: Take Natalie to a Tampa Bay Rays game and get her picture taken with Raymond, the fuzzy mascot of an undetermined species. Throughout the game, I would catch an occasional glimpse of blue fur, but then he would disappear into the (small) crowd. Ugh! Finally, around the sixth inning, there he was! Johnathan and I grabbed Natalie and the camera and headed down toward the lower level, where adoring Raymond fans were gathering for their own photo ops. Johnathan secured a woman to take a family shot of the three of us, but then this little boy popped up and started yapping incessantly to Raymond, telling him how much he liked him and what a good baseball player he was. OK, Raymond does NOT play baseball. He's the mascot! Go away, kid! Finally it was our turn, and here is the absolutely adorable photo that has become one of my all-time favorites:

As for the rest of the evening, Natalie did pretty well. I'm glad we went on a Tuesday night so the game wasn't too crowded. When she got fussy, it was easy to walk up and down the empty aisles to calm her. She was fascinated by the giant Tropicana orange logo on the wall behind us and kept looking at it and smiling. Eventually, she fell asleep in Daddy's arms, which meant I had to feed him dinner so we wouldn't wake her up. Our friends Rep and Simone attended the game with us and enjoyed meeting Natalie. All in all, it was a fun night and no one really cared that the Rays ended up losing to the Toronto Blue Jays. I can say I hardly watched any of the game, but I did finally get a Rays t-shirt! I'm trying to upload some more photos from the night, but the page keeps timing out. I'll try again later. Be sure to check back in the next day or two to read all about our weekend trip to Omaha and Natalie's first time on a plane.