Phillies' Season Opener!

The order of my favorite holidays:  Christmas, Halloween, Phillies Opening Day...

There is something about the first game of the season.  You can feel the excitement in the air.  Everyone is excited for the first pitch that signifies that the Phillies season has finally started again after the cold winter.  It means warm weather and for Mike and myself, it is what initially brought us together as a couple.  It was the first passion that we realized we both shared.

The past two home openers have been GORGEOUS!  Warm weather; lots of sun!

This year, we weren't so lucky...

It was raining/snowing!  WHAT?!  Snow on April 1st?!  It was freeeeeezing too.  Mike and I still needed to buy tickets, so we got down to the stadium at 7:30 to make sure we got them.  Luckily, I have the best boyfriend ever and he let me stay in the car and wait for the lots to open, while he went and stood in the rain waiting for the ticket office to open.

 He didn't have to wait there too long; my brother, sister-in-law and some of my brothers friends showed up to commiserate with mike in the freezing rain.  I stayed in the car and read through my google reader!  I did get a little entertainment.  The guy in front of me got out of his car to fill his cooler and he had a case of O'douls!  hahaha!  He is going to have one heck of a tailgate!

I finally got into the lot, which was bittersweet.  I was glad to be parked in the lot but I knew I was going to have to go out into the rain :(

I found my family and I was glad to see that they were still all in good spirits!

We finally got to the ticket window and got our tickets!  Wahoo!

Mike was soaked to the core so, we raced back to the car to get out of the rain and snow.  Even though I wasn't out there the whole time, my fingers were numb.  Now that we have our tickets, I was ready to tailgate!  Well...car-gate..

I had an Irish coffee and Mike had a beer.

I'll tell you what, that Irish coffee warmed me from the inside out!  Also, since we hadn't had breakfast, I instantly felt tipsy.  Unfortunately, we didn't have anything else to eat except fluffer-nutter cupcakes and chips, so...that was breakfast! (recipe for cupcakes to come)

After about an hour of car-gating, everyone else started to show up!  We had to get out of the car but, these people are worth it!

This also meant it was time for Mimosas!!

And that is when this group really started to shine!  Mike iced James pretty early in the tailgate.

He was a trooper and I have never seen anyone chug a Smirnoff that fast!

The girls had another car-gate to warm up and eat our roast pork sandwiches from John's, which were amazing (thank you, James and Sarah for picking them up)!

After we finished the sandwiches, we drank more Mimosas and some beers.  I am so proud that everyone manned up and braved the crappy weather!  It was time to go in and see the opening ceremony!

We actually managed to get a really good spot, right on the 3rd baseline!  We hung out there for the first 5 innings before Kate and Mike swapped tickets so, Kate and I could have some girl time and Mike and Hoagie could have boy time.

It was an incredible game!  They managed to pull out a walk off win in the last inning!  I was very thankful for them to win it without going into extra innings!  The offense definitely came through!  It felt like a World Series game with how excited everyone was!

It was a great start to the season all around.  Rain can't dampen a true Phillies fan's spirit!