Spring Training 2014

We RVed the month of March in Arizona for Spring Training. It's become an annual trip for us, staying once again at Pueblo El Mirage Golf and RV Resort.

We met up with friends and family, played some golf, rode bikes, took walks,visited most of the spring training baseball fields, and enjoyed a lot of baseball games! 

Here's some highlights.

We also visited the Fire Museum in Phoenix, the Hall of Flame

To see more Spring Training 2014 pics, go to my flickr page .

We've Got the Travel Bug! Part I

From March to May, Arizona to Cancun to Fort Bragg, California

As much as I would like to stay up on my blogging, life just gets in the way.

Or, maybe it's the traveling!! We do love to travel!

We headed east to El Mirage, Arizona, for the month of March for Baseball Spring Training.

Once again, we stayed at the Pueblo El Mirage Resort. Family and friends joined us there. We went to many baseball games, 

played some golf 

(I made a couple of pars, otherwise my game consisted of a lot of practice hitting at each hole!),

and enjoyed beautiful sunsets over the desert. It was a wonderfully relaxing month.

We attended 2-3 baseball games each week. Our goal was to visit all the spring training baseball parks in the greater Phoenix area. We almost hit every one of them! (Next year we will!) Of course,
we went to several games at the Peoria Sports Complex, since it is the spring training home for the San Diego Padres (and the Seattle Mariners).

We also visited the newest "state of the art" baseball park, Salt River Fields (spring training home to the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies), where we saw one of the World Baseball Classic games, between Mexico and Italy.

Here's some more pictures from spring training!


The last week of April, we spent a relaxing week in Cancun. This time we stayed at THE Royal in Cancun, a gorgeous all-inclusive resort, not far from the resort we stayed at last year.

We stayed in a Royal Junior Suite with this spectacular oceanview (with a jacuzzi tub in it) and went to sleep each night to the soothing sound of the ocean waves.

 Dinner with friends (Nick and I, Marc and Nancee behind Andy and Cara!

 Cancun has become one of our favorite places to relax!
 More Cancun pictures here.


In mid-May, we headed to Fort Bragg on the rocky northern California coastline in our RV. On our drive north we stayed a night at the beautiful Jaxon Keys Winery thanks to our Harvest Hosts club.

We had a wonderful week of camping at the Pomo Campground, AB diving, campfires, and more with our bestest friends, Lynn and Rick.  Our daughters, Emily and Nicole and their families joined us once again.

It was so fun watching the little ones playing together, 

reminding the grandparents of days gone by when our children did the same. 

Love this new family tradition!

See more pictures of Ft Bragg here.

Fun at Spring Training

Traveling to Arizona for Spring Training has become a family tradition!

A waterfall near the golf course

Nick enjoying a game of golf

David shot his best game ever!

Nicole with a happy Brody

Gigi helps mommy make lunch

Hallee having fun playing with the beanie babies in the basket!

On a hot Arizona day, Sydney "relaxes" in the shade

An Arizona sunset

Papa and Yaya with Brody and Gigi at a night game

A tired Brody

Padres' Baseball at Peoria Sports Complex

The Hoffman brothers together in the Padres' dugout--

Glenn on the left and Trevor on the right!

Angelina, Alex and Micah in front of Peoria Sports Complex, before a Padres' game.

Micah having fun running through the waterfalls at a local park in El Mirage, AZ.

Andy and Nick enjoy a green beer on St Patrick's Day

An afternoon in Old Town, Scottsdale

2011 SD Padres

Spring Training in Arizona

Last week we spent a week in El Mirage, Arizona, for Baseball Spring Training. Alex flew in for a couple of days; Nicole, David and family drove over for the weekend, as did David's parents and his sis, Carly and hubby, Chase. It was great spending time together. We had warm weather, sunny weather during the days and cool evenings.We saw a couple of games at Peoria Sports Complex where the SD Padres train (Padres won one and lost one);got players' autographs, even Manager Bud Black's, shown below tossing the signed baseball back to Alex!Nick and Alex drove to Mesa, AZ, to see another game at the D'backs new Spring Training Facility (Padres won!) We all went to Camelback Ranch in Glendale, AZ, where the Dodgers train, to watch the Dodgers v Giants (Giants won). Of course, I am told, winning doesn't matter at Spring Training, but it is always great when our team wins!

We rode bikes, took walks in the RV park, went to the pool (Gigi loves to swim), and hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. Fun times!!

Seems like this trip has become a new tradition for our family. We're hoping Alex and his family of 3 will join us next year, along with Nicole's family of 5 next yr, although we aren't sure where everyone will sleep. Someone might have to get a hotel room since the RV Resort we stay at (Pueblo RV Resort) doesn't allow tents; and our motorhome, while huge, isn't huge enough to sleep 6 adults, one dog, 1- 4 yr old, 2- almost 2 yr olds and 1- almost 1 year old!!!!! There's just not enough beds or enough floor space to go around. At least Nick and I know we have a nice big comfy bed and so does Sydney.

More pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/72308330@N00/sets/72157626115826625/

Nicole's pictures are here.

Alex's very original and creative pictures can be seen at alexanderpavone photography

Great Weekend in Arizona

SPRING TRAINING WEEKEND

We headed to Arizona last Thursday in our RV with Nicole, David and Gigi. Nick was able to drive, despite having had his 2nd rotator cuff surgery just a month ago! We met David's parents, Dan and Jeri there about 8:30 pm on Thursday night, at a very nice resort, Pueblo El Mirage RV and Golf Resort in El Mirage, Arizona. This resort is a lot nicer than the place we stayed at last year, with a fantastic clubhouse and recreation buildings with loads of activities, kid friendly, extended pool hours for kids (a big hit with Gigi), people friendly, a championship golf course (which Dan, Jeri and David played on Friday morning), and beautiful landscaping--lots of flowers, not just the usual cacti for a resort in the desert. It's about 20 minutes from both baseball parks we went to while we were there. We enjoyed hanging out during the days, riding bikes, going to the pool, etc.

Weather was nice, sunny,warm and breezy, in the low to mid 70's on Friday and Saturday, but quite a bit colder at night than we had expected, in the low 50's, when we were at the baseball games, where we sat on the grass in left fields both nights.

Friday night's game was at Peoria Sports Complex in Peoria, Arizona, spring training home of the San Diego Padres. Padres beat LA 9-4. Met up with some old friends from San Diego at the game! Fun.Saturday night's game was at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona, spring training home of the LA Dodgers. Padres beat LA again, 4-1. (woohoo!!)

Sunday morning we packed up the motorhome and headed back to Camelback Ranch for a day game between the Dodgers and the Cleveland Indians. We left the game early, for the long drive home, but the Dodgers were losing 11-1 in the 7th inning.

To see all our pictures go to our flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/72308330@N00/sets/72157623675318046/

A Trip to Padres' Spring Training

I'm sure most are familiar with the famous movie quote form Field of Dreams,
"If you build it, [they] will come!" Such a true statement about Baseball Spring Training in Arizona!

Thousands came and talk about traffic! If you've not been there you would be shocked at the traffic-compares to LA freeways during rush hour! Seems that they forgot about widening the roads when they built all the baseball parks, and there are a lot of baseball parks in Arizona. All the cities run together, and while there's a ton of new growth in these cities, new homes, new shopping centers, etc. Most had only two lanes going each way, definitely not enough to accommodate the number of people who come to Spring Training. We soon discovered that eaving early for each game was a must!

Nicole, David and Gigi traveled with us, in our "home mome" on Thursday, March 19th, to Surprise, Arizona, about 30 minutes from Phoenix. We stayed in a mobile home, gated community (Sunflower Resort, although some of the residents didn't have sunny personalities!) that also had RV sites. David's parents, Dan and Jeri joined us with their trailer. Thursday night they went to the Phoenix Airport to pick up David's sister, Stacey and her son Peter (6), who flew in from Indiana.

Nick and I were the only Padres' Fans in our group--the Bennett clan is all for the LA Dodgers! So, we endured two Dodger games, being the good sports that we are! and only one Padres' game over the weekend. As much as I wanted to get Gigi a cute little pin Padres' outfit, I am told David would never allow her to wear it! She did look cute in her Dodgers garb, though!

While at Spring Training we went to 3 ballparks: Friday night we went to the Surprise Recreation Center, home of the Kansas City Royals and. (the LA Dodgers lost to the Kansas City Royals, 9-3); Saturday afternoon we went to the all new Goodyear Ballpark, home of the Cleveland Indians and the Cincinnati Reds (the Dodgers beat the Indians ); Sunday afternoon the Bennetts all went to the new Dodgers park in Glendale AZ, and Nick and I went to the Peoria Sports Complex home of the San Diego Padres and the Seattle Mariners (unfortunately, the Padres lost to the Diamondbacks 12-7). But I'm told Spring Training isn't about winning baseball games. It's about seeing new possible players for each team before the season actually starts in April.

Visiting the different ballparks (top pic: Surprise Field; mid pic: Goodyear Ballpark; bottom pic: Peoria field) was more fun than I had anticipated. Each had a look all it's own. There were a lot more fans at every game than I thought , as well; the first two games we went to had sold out crowds numbering 10,000+ fans, and 8,838 fans at the Padres' game! At all three parks we visited they not only played "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" for the seventh inning stretch, but they followed that song with "YMCA!" Seemed funny to us, but everyone got into it with arm movements and all.

We enjoyed great company, great fun, great food, nice weather, although rather HOT on Saturday-some of us had to seek shade during the game, and beautiful sunsets! We had such a good time we plan to go back to Spring Training next year, for a week! That way we can do some other things, like golf or shopping and relax between games to avoid some of the traffic. We found a new place to stay that looks much nicer and the people are friendlier. It even has a golf course right in the park!


To see more pictures from our trip to Spring Training, click on this link to my flickr pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/72308330@N00/sets/72157615899629988/

GO PADRES!

Baseball season is here and our family rivalry begins. Yes, we are a family divided. The Pavones (Nick, Karen, Alex and Angelina) are cheering on the San Diego Padres!!, who are in first in the west currently, and the Bennetts (Nicole and David)are LA Dodger fans (the only thing good about that is Gigi looks adorable in her Dodger Blue garb!)

In recent years I have become a much more avid Padre fan, watching most of the games on TV and attending several games throughout the season. In honor of the season, I received an email that I had to share with you.

"Spring training is over and America's favorite pastime (quilting, not baseball!) is now in full-swing. In celebration of the season's start, we'd like you to sing along with us:

' Take me out to the quilt shop
Take me out with the crowd
Buy me some fabric right off the rack
I don't care if I never get back
Let me root, root, root for the new stuff
If it don't come I won’t stop
For it's one, two, three trips and more
To the old quilt shop!' "

Since I have a TV in my sewing/quilting room, I often can be found watching the Padres while quilting!! But, then, I am a good multi-tasker!

GO PADRES!!