Remember that time I told you I wasn’t particularly sporty? Well, I can now say the tides, they are a turnin’. Because I’ve been to what (I think) is my very first professional baseball game!

Yep, that’s right. Bowen and I took the kids to see everyone’s favorite minor league baseball team, the Rainiers, at Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium. And it was surprisingly family-friendly!

Read on for the full list of everything kiddo approved there.

First off, did we love the game? Yes!

Did we watch the whole thing? No.

Lol.

But hear me out.

In a different world, I would’ve gladly sat alongside Bowen and drank beer from giant plastic cups. But in my current parenting reality, I basically never sat down.

Our day

First, we had to check out what cool free things we could get from our friends’ special tickets to the Summit Club, a 4,000-square-foot members-only box of premium fanciness on the stadium’s third floor. This special room had a ton of free things. Our faves were the cold water bottles from a refrigerated cooler, soda fountain drinks, and yummy popcorn from neat turn-style cereal dispenser things. You guys, there was even free booze. Swoon.

Second, after we left the club, we had to scout the food situation downstairs, stand in line for more two popcorns, two cotton candy tubs, and 5 hot dogs. Then we had to spill the popcorn, clean it up, find our seats, sit down for four seconds, shove food in our faces, fall victim to distraction yet again when a certain someone had to go potty, find a restroom, discreetly panic while I let 7-year-old Wyatt go into the men’s restroom alone because he’s too old for me to drag him into the women’s restroom, walk back to our seats, get lost on the way, spot a surprise playground (!!!), talk about the family-friendly awesomeness of Cheney Stadium, find our seats again, whisper-yell to daddy about our playground discovery, watch two minutes of I don’t even know what inning, and then …

Third, you guessed it, we had to hit up the playground. Whew! What a day. And that was only the first hour.

The playground

The playground is a red, blue and silver collection of climbing fun located in the Family Pavilion behind the stadium’s grassy berm/first base side. Built in 2016, the playground has two parts: a main structure for kids ages 5 to 12 and a smaller activity cube climber for kids ages 2 to 5. Really, though, everyone was playing on everything there, no matter their exact age. Park rules signs on site say kids up to 17 years old are even welcome to play.

☞ Continue reading this story (for free) over on Gig Harbor Now to see what the best options are for big kids and little kids at the playground, upcoming deals this summer, and all the 411 on whether diaper bags and strollers are ok!