Always 10

This past Friday Rhett and I FINALLY got to go down to see the Braves retire number 10 and honor Chipper Jones. We bought tickets as soon as they went on sale, so we've been looking forward to this for a while. I booked us a room at a Double Tree in Buckhead so that we could eat a delicious cookie before the game. The hotel was pretty nice, although the 6AM trash convention outside our room was an unpleasant surprise. I have never seen it take that long for a trash truck to pick up the trash. I gave up trying to go back to sleep at about 6:20. Ridiculous!

Anyway, after we checked into the hotel and had our cookies, we headed over to the nearest Marta station to catch the train. The whole Marta system is pretty neat! With game day traffic, it was quite tight on the train, but I imagine on a regular day it's probably not so bad. Some of the stations are definitely sketchy though. I probably wouldn't ride it alone, I'll just put it that way.

We were worried about getting to the game on time since we had to wait so long for the train and the shuttle, but we made it just in time to see the number retirement ceremony! If you're not a baseball fan, this is a ceremony to honor a retired player and hang their number up at the field. The number will never be worn again by a Brave. It's Chipper's forever! He was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame earlier that day too.

It was just SO AWESOME to be there to witness this moment. Rhett has been a Chipper fan as long as he's been a baseball fan, which is a long time, so I know it was really special for him. The game went really well and the Braves came out on top! There were several good plays and some home runs to keep things interesting. This was probably my favorite major league baseball experience to date.

After the game we hopped back on the shuttle, then on the train back to Buckhead. It was nice having a crowd around so I didn't feel so vulnerable. We did see a guy get arrested at the Marta station on the way back, so that didn't do much to put me at ease. I'm probably just a wimp, but I'm used to my little North Jackson bubble :)

We woke up the next morning (early because of the stupid trash pickup) and headed to the Georgia Aquarium. This post is already pretty long, so I'm going to save the aquarium for another post. It was an AMAZING weekend! Even with the 6 hour drive there and back + horrible traffic, I loved our weekend.

Special Needs Athletics - baseball

Earlier in the summer, I photographed some Special Needs Athletics baseball games. SNA is an athletic program here in town for people with special needs. It's a wonderful organization, and I really enjoyed spending time with all the players and volunteers! I did a photo essay on the season, which you can see on JPG magazine's website here. I wrote a few paragraphs to go with the photos that explains them a little better. Here are most of the photos that I included; they are some of my favorites from the 10 week season.

Atlanta in the Rain

About a week ago, Rhett and I set off for Atlanta to see a Braves game. I bought him really good tickets for his college graduation present. The "really good tickets" part turned out to be a terrible idea, but we'll get to that later.

The drive there seemed REALLY long for some reason. Of course we got some road trip eats, including Rhett's favorite: Tijuana Mama pickled sausage. Gross, right? I did eat a couple of bites...it's not too bad, I guess. We finally got to Atlanta and got to enjoy plenty of their notorious traffic. Luckily we planned on getting to the ballpark crazy early, so it wasn't a big deal.

Welcome to Turner Field! This place is awesome...definitely the best ballpark I've ever been to. We got there so early so we could make sure we got our Jason Heyward bobbleheads! It was beautiful out when we got there, so we just enjoyed lots of time together in our awesome seats.

This is what happens when I try to take pictures of us with my 50mm lens.

This is where things took a turn for the worst. As you can see...a storm rolled in. A little bit before the game was supposed to start, they tarped the field. Once it started drizzling, Rhett and I took shelter at a picnic table in the stadium. We saw there until it started raining/hailing sideways on us, then we had to move again. How wonderful that I splurged on the tickets, right?!

After playing with the hail and waiting around for a while, we finally had to break down and buy a couple of slices of pizza. It was outlandishly expensive, but we were starving.  Miserable rain and hunger would make for a doubly grumpy Kristi. Anyway, the game finally started at about 8:30. Honestly, it was a pretty crappy game. The Braves were not playing well, so I was a little disappointed.

I think it was after the top of the 4th that they had to delay the game again. At that point we decided we should should leave. We'd already been there since 5 anyway, so we were tired. The bad part about that was that we had to walk back to the car in the rain. What an adventure that was! I was wearing a tank top and shorts because of course I just knew it would be unbearably hot. On the contrary, after it rained it dropped like 20 degrees.We jogged as far as we could so I could warm up, and that made the rain a little more bearable. 

Despite that terrible game and all the rain, we actually had a great time together. That's the kind of thing that really reassures me that Rhett and I are right for each other. I love that we can have fun together no matter what.