A Promise Kept!

Last year A-Dog (dear sweet cousin, are you happy he has a *code name* now?) had set some reading goals with rewards he came up with - we approved them without realizing what we were actually getting into! At his elementary school, you read books worth a set number of points (based on length, difficulty and content I assume) - they range from 1/2 point to probably about 30 points. Since the school did away with rewards, we had to come up with something. His goals were based on the previous year, so I figured we were safe. So I thought.



Not only did he meet his final goal, he exceeded it. Good for him! Sadly, we are still trying to catch up on the reward side of the achievement. One of his *high end* goals was dinner out with just mom and dad. No siblings. Just the 3 of us. To most that may seem a simple task. For us, not so much. Between regular season baseball and All Stars, available nights and babysitting money were both tapped out.


Until last night. Grandma and Grandpa came and took care of the 3 little ones while the 3 of us went to dinner. We had decided on the place long ago - and A-Dog had no clue where we were going. We landed at a popular local Teppan restaurant.




The kid was in AWE. Seriously. It was hard to talk to him (because of the noise level), but you could see by his expressions he was amazed and having a great time! If you've never been to a place like this you are missing out. They cook your food right in front of you and not just cook, they also entertain.



Notice the fire coming out of the *onion volcano*. He watched carefully and enjoyed every second of it. At one point during preparation, our chef flipped a piece of shrimp to A-Dog which was then caught in his wide open mouth!


He even used his chopsticks for his teriyaki chicken :-)! Thankfully he opted for a fork to eat the rice, or we could still be there today!

Somewhere in the Middle!

Middle School that is. Or, if you are from my generation, Junior High. I have no idea when they started calling it "Middle School" or stopped calling it "Junior High". Either way, I now am the proud owner of a Middle School-er!

I always try to make a point of taking a picture of him on his first day of school every year. Something of a tradition. Today was no different :- ), except that we almost forgot and had everyone loaded and the camera was in the house...we made a quick stop, got the camera - hopped out, snapped the photo and we were on our way! Like I said, it was no different - lol!

Here are the last 7 years of photos :-)

First day of 6th grade

First day of 5th grade

First day of 4th grade

First day of 3rd grade

First week of 2nd grade - no clue where the first day pic is.

First day of 1st grade (smiling with tears)

Kindergarten. Missing the pic from first day - I KNOW I have it...must find it!

Next year I will have a kindergartner again, but for now, just 1 in school! Luckily, I have the *star student* and I will not be making trips to the school for meetings with Principals or Teachers. Next year, that may be an entirely different story.

He was so excited today and I can tell you I am proud to be his Mom! A new chapter in his life has begun and he can't wait to dive in and live it!

Cheers!

End of an era...

No one likes for good things to end, but as the saying goes "all good things must come to an end". And unfortunately, our All Star season has come to an end. After probably 50-60 hours of practice, several team building parties and 5 amazing games over the last (nearly) 4 weeks, the 10/11 team is officially done.

If we had won on Saturday, we would be playing tonight for the District Championship. That's how close we were. Instead, tonight, we will be watching our Juniors play in their Semi Final round. The best part (beside that I will be the official scorekeeper) it is being held at Tucson Electric Park (home to Spring Training teams...for now) and I get to sit inside the booth! A silver lining!

Ok, ok, I'll tell you about the game!

Park? Far away park. Time? Decent. 7pm. Weather? Hotter than you can imagine with no breeze. None. Between that and the adrenalin, it was not good. Game start time? Was actually 8pm because someone failed to secure umpires (let me point out it is NOT the responsibility of the teams playing or the park hosting it. I will leave it at that.).

The game started a bit on the crazy side. This particular park is a hitters park. The outfield slopes down to the fence so if a ball is missed, it just picks up speed and continues for what seems like several miles. Especially if you are the outfielder who is in charge of chasing it. In the first inning - there were 3 home runs. THREE BOMBS - PAST the fence, never a doubt home runs! These are 10 and 11 year olds - hitting 220+ foot home runs. 1 for us. 2 for them. Things settled in and after 4 innings it was 6 to 3 US (all 3 of their runs were solo home runs...crazy!). The boys held them until the bottom of the 6th and then the other team tied it up.

The 6th and 7th innings were very emotional for our kids and fans. I will not go into too much detail. I firmly believe that these kids won as a team and lost as a team. Never once has a finger been pointed by any of our players, parents or fans. They are just that way, and that is what made this so hard. We have played on 'finger pointing' teams, and this team was just special.

In the bottom of the 7th, the other team scored a run with 2 outs. It was on an error - 1 of only 2 made by our boys that night. The game they played was amazing and beyond outstanding. The truly deserved to be in the Championship game, but it was not their destiny.

The pain my heart felt for the boys that night was crushing. The tears they shed leaves a lump in my throat. Many of these boys I have known for a very long time, and some I just met this All Star season. Loosing a game you led, must be the worst way to loose. It has to be. Their faces said it all.

There are things in life you will never forget. For this All Star team - it will be one of those things! For Alec, it is his dream and would trade absolutely nothing for the opportunity to play on the All Star team.

Alec's stats for the night - 5 at bats - 2 singles, a fly out, a ground out, a walk and 1 RBI.

Game 4

I am still very sure that I cannot take another heart stopping, seed spitting, fall off my stadium seat kind of game again. Really! While last night was not as bad, let's start from the beginning.



Park? Very far away park. Time? Decent - 6:00pm. Weather? Driving there it was nice and as we got closer...boy was it dark. Got out of the car to get our seats all set up before the game started and about 30 feet from the bleachers the raindrops started and the down pour began. That quick.

After about 20 minutes of forceful rain and affirming texts coming in that the storm was not moving anywhere fast (from our personal radar watching fan at work), we began to think perhaps we were NOT playing this game. Then thru the steamed up windows, I saw cars starting to bail out of the parking lot. Now, normally word of mouth spreads quickly amongst a tight knit team such as ours. Apparently when it is raining, it's every man for himself. After a few phone calls to other people in the same parking lot, it was determined the game was moved to a dry park. Closer to home.

Game started 1.5 hours late. Kids forgot how to use the bat. Enjoyed leaving runners on. And thought it was a good idea to keep the game close. This is a team we should have been done with in the 4th inning, but, lucky for us, we got our monies worth. Letting them catch up in the 5th inning was not what I had in mind and going into the 6th - 4 to 9 us - we were not excited to have NO OUTS, bases loaded and a kid score on a Hit By Pitch and another driven in by a single. Not good at all.

Out 1 - grounder to Alec (playing 2nd as always) and a quick flip to short stop covering 2nd base. Still, runners at 1st and 3rd - tie run at the plate? You all KNOW that the number 4 spot in the line up is meant for your power hitter. Who is up? The 4 spot. This kid already had 2 doubles tonight. Not good.

First pitch he crushes the ball - line drive right at Alec. Well, not quite right at him. Estimated at about 2-3 feet or so OVER his head. He leaps up, catches it (no idea how he went that high) - tags the runner going from 1st to 2nd - double play. Game over. We win 6-9.

No need to bat the bottom of the 6th. One less thing to worry about!

Alec's stats for the game - 4 at bats. Double, fielders choice, fly out to 1st and a single. In the field he had 1 throwing error, caught a fly, assisted in 1 out and made an unassisted double play.

Next game is semi finals! SOOOO important! Single elimination. We are hoping to win that game to play for District Champs!

Game 1 (finally)

I am certain that I CANNOT take another edge of my seat, lead breaking, hand sweating, adrenalin rushing game. Very certain. I have never been comfortable with a lead, no matter how good it looks. And the intensity of the game distracted me from taking pictures. Great. I'm supposed to be getting an action shot of each kid. Tonight. Definitely.

Let's talk about the game.

Park? Farther than far. 45 minutes I think - in good traffic. Weather? Hotter than you can imagine. The kids were so hot there was no celebration for striking out a kid. That's how hot. So hot, I'm pretty sure they were serving fried eggs at the snack bar. Pretty sure.

Can you see how hot our pitcher is? This is the 1st inning (or maybe 2nd). Yes, that is Alec behind him at 2nd base. Their faces match the red dirt.

Our record - 1 and 1. Their record 2-0. We needed to win or essentially we are done. We need to be 3 and 1 to advance.

During the 2nd inning (we were home team for a change) we batted 14 kids. No joke. I was worried that Alec would be the 2nd out AND the 3rd. It was like that. Thankfully, his 2nd at bat that inning he got a single with an RBI, so I could let another parent be the one with the kid that got out. Wouldn't see MY kid getting 2 outs in 1 inning, that's for sure :- )!!! (phew!)

Our game was littered with errors, misplayed balls, nasty bounces off the grass, and the sun right in about 6 of our fielders eyes. That and the umpire that continually called a strike at the top of the shoulder. But, after 2 innings - score was somehow them 3 - us 10. Apparently our kids enjoyed NOT being in the field with the sun in their eyes. But, we allowed too much to go on in the next 3 innings and at the end of 5 it was 11-14 us. In the 6th, they scored 3 to tie it up. Thank goodness we were home team right? So true. With no outs, runners on 1st and 2nd, a single scored the run to end the game.

Although, I'm not sure I saw the final hit - Karen was blocking :-). Can you see the batter in the box??? Why is he there? The game ended! Does he know we just won? It was so hot, it's hard to say what was registering in their fried brains!

This game had 300 pitches thrown. That's a lot. Especially when Monday night there was 160 pitches thrown. Big difference. We used 2 pitchers, they used 4. We truly dominated the game and sans errors, it would have been a whole different game.

Alec's stats: At bat - 5...2 strikeouts, 1 walk, 1 hit by pitch and 1 single with an RBI. No bruise left by the pitch that hit him. However, he does have a nasty cleat mark on his shoulder from when he tried to get out of the way of the right fielder during a 'slide for pop fly and take out your teammate' kind of play. A bruise he can live with. Nothing is broken and that's what matters!

Game 3

With the obvious seasonal threat of summer monsoons, we did wonder if we would all make another trip to the far away park only to be turned away at the rain. Thankfully for my gas tank and my dwindling kid watcher fund (since we don't 'sit' on babies, we don't call it babysitting), the game was played and never delayed. Quite the 'rhym-ist' aren't I?



Pre-game excitement (except the guy in the middle I guess)


This game happened to be the battle of the pitchers and after 4 innings it was 0 to 1 them. Typically we are given about 2 hours to finish a game - so give or take that with rain, lightening etc. This particular game was over in 1 hour 15 minutes. That's how tough it was. Few hits. Few walks. Sad loss. Very little to comment on really. Except for Wyatt, I think he won!



From the looks of it, she may be my new daughter-in-law. This cutie pie belongs to our team - and is the sister on one of our players. Good thing, I'd hate to have to search all over town to find her again, seriously, quite a sweetheart!

But, all was not lost - we did complete the game without delay or a reschedule. That's a big deal these days!


And here's a little cheese for your ham...

Game 2!

But what happened to Game 1 you ask? Well our day was scheduled around a 7:45pm start time, (which included some time with the A/C and no swimming...well, maybe just a quick dip!), some relaxation, then driving the 35 miles to the park, enduring 102 sweltering heat (and humidity I might add) once we pulled into the parking lot - then the weather took a turn to the south.

Or was it to the north west?

I'm not sure.

Either way, at one point the dedicated fans from the earlier game and the excited fans for the second game had to run for cover during a quick on set of a summer monsoon. After the downpour subsided, the earlier game was allowed to finish - but it was after 8:30, and far too late for us to start...so, we are now rescheduled. Game 1 will be between game 3 and 4...or is it now between 2 and 4?

So, Game 2 we'll call it was last night. Time not any different than previous night. 7:45. Park, somewhat closer. Weather? Very cooperative! Only a drizzle that faded off to just leave little annoying bugs that get in your eyes, ears and mouth.

We played a team at their home park and after a coin flip, we were away. 2 things stacked against us before the game even started. Their starting pitcher? He was on OUR 9/10 All Star team last year and was now up against 5 of his former teammates.

As typical, Alec was the lead off batter. Poor guy. There are several spots no one wants to be - at bat with bases loaded 2 outs down by 1 - and the first batter of the first All Star game of the year. He handled it like any good All Star would...went down in 3 straight swinging strikes.

Luckily, the rest of the top of the first went a lot differently - and his 2nd time at bat that inning (yup, you read right) he got on with a walk. They scored 5 that inning and ended up winning 12 to 1. Alec had 1 strikeout, 1 walk, 1 single and 1 triple with 2 RBI's. He played all of the 4 inning game (called for 10 run rule) and caught a line drive, a pop fly and assisted in getting a runner out at 2nd.

He said later that he was so glad to strike out his first at bat because he needed to get the "first game jitters" out of his way. Clearly it worked. The triple he hit during his last at bat was the most solid hit we've seen him hit in a while. He crushed it to a gap in right field and it bounced once and hit the fence. I guess the cash we put out on that new bat is paying off :- ).

Next game? Friday at 5:30

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